hardware synthesizers patch

[Jude DaShiell]

Did the patch that disabled hardware speech synthesizers get into the 
kernel at the upstream level put in by Linus Torvalds or someone working 
for him, or was the origin of the patch one of the downstream distributors 
with subsequent adoption by the upstream kernel workers?  Another question 
I should ask is beyond disabling hardware speech synthesizers what was the 
purpose of that patch?  I hope that served to block at least one security 
hole.