ACPI battery module broken?

[law at redhat.com]

In message <1069277483.5150.1.camel at littlePiet>, Peter Boy writes:
 >If I activate ACPI on my IBM Thinkpad T40p, the gnome battery applet
 >shows up with 0%.
 >
 >If I check /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state I get:
 >
 >present:                 yes
 >ERROR: Unable to read battery status
 >
 >Is this usual for the current status of acpi support or is there an
Well, the battery status works on my HP/Compaq 25xx using ACPI.

jeff