The included patch is essentially a Linux Plug and Play Support rewrite.  It
contains many significant improvements, including the following:


1.)  A Global Plug and Play Layer
    - Now drivers do not have to worry about which plug and play
      protocol they are using.  Calls are made directly to the Linux
      Plug and Play Layer and then forwarded to the appropriate
      protocol.
    - This will make it very easy to integrate ACPI PnP support when
      it's ready


2.)  A complete Plug and Play BIOS driver
    - The Plug and Play BIOS now supports reading and writing of
      resource configurations.
    - It is now possible to enable disabled PNPBIOS devices.  Therefore
      the user can safely enable PnP OS support in their BIOS.


3.)  Driver Model Integration
    - The entire plug and play layer is integrated into the driver model
    - The user interface is housed here
    - PnP protocols are listed under the bus "pnp"


4.)  A powerful global resource configuration interface
    - The user can use this to activate PnP devices for legacy and
      user-level drivers
    - See the documentation for how to configure devices.

5.)  Automatic resource allocation for needed devices


6.)  A PnP device name database

And many more improvements.

This patch also adds me to the maintainers list, considering the current
PnP maintainer has been inactive for over 2 years now.