Re: Fw: Re: keyboard problem with 2.6.6

[Andries Brouwer <aebr@win.tue.nl>]

On Sat, May 29, 2004 at 09:09:53AM +0200, Vojtech Pavlik wrote:

> One more thought: The emulated PS/2 mouse so many people are complaining
> about is there only because applications like X cannot use the native
> event interface. It was intended to be removed after that support is
> added, but with X development being as slow as it is, it didn't ever
> happen.

A mistake.

You add new functionality. That is good. At the same time you want
to force people to use this new stuff by throwing out the old. Bad.

It is almost impossible to remove features from the kernel.
People have a great variety of user space setups, and can have
lots of reasons why it is undesirable or impossible to change
their software, while a new kernel may be required to support
new hardware or for security reasons.

One should always (i) go in a long series of tiny steps,
(ii) attempt to be 100% backwards compatible.
Obsoleting old stuff is done over a period of more than
five years, if at all.

Andries