Thanks for your considerations regarding the name, that's a valid point. Using some consistent scheme to differentiate the various types is favorable, therefore using the model name instead of the company name generally speaking makes sense. Also, I consider breaking applications that use the CLI instead of libflashrom a good thing. We should do that more often so that either they get so annoyed that their authors review the libflashrom patches or annoy us back enough so that we eventually integrate libflashrom. This was somewhat sarcastic, but my main point is: the CLI should not be used by other programs. Regarding users... that's an excellent point because I am not sure how well the help texts (manpage and --L output) are after this change. Carl-Daniel?
Coercion, is always worse than the possible choices. To use the flashrom not need to be программистом. libflashrom requires C ABI compatibility. How to be with the integration of python, php, perl, ocaml, lisp, etc.? Who write for these language bindings, and will keep them up to date? A good practice in case of need to delete or change the name, is the creation of a new name as a synonym of the old, and the announcement of the old name as "deprecated".
Signing off is about the code, not about testing or reviewing. It indicates that you were authorized to contribute that code under the given license to this project. And in this case Carl-Daniel implies with it general consent to what he has done with your code when refining the patches. I interpret your considerations regarding the type parameter as disagreement, but I might be wrong...
I will sign an agreement with the license for this patch.