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Re: reassigning X server keybounce to kernel per XFree86 upstream



[debian-powerpc: perhaps some of you folks would be willing to research
this issue on Mr. Xu's behalf, as he has indicated his unwillingness to
do deal with it further]

On Mon, Sep 02, 2002 at 10:34:50PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> All 3 people involved seem to be using PS2 keyboards.

As usual, you haven't even bothered to read the bug reports before
concluding this problem is not your responsibility.

From #156563:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Apple PowerBook G4"
	HorizSync	30-100
	VertRefresh	50-160
	Option		"DPMS"
	Modeline	"1152x768" 64.995 1152 1213 1349 1472  768 771 777 806 -HSync -VSync
EndSection

Kernel Version: Linux ay 2.4.18-newpmac #1 Thu Mar 14 22:44:49 EST 2002 ppc unknown unknown GNU/Linux

They don't make PS/2 keyboards for PowerMacs.

Furthermore, see:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00379.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00380.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00383.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00386.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00389.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00407.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00409.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00484.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00485.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00588.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00592.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00593.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00604.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2002/debian-powerpc-200208/msg00597.html

for several independent reports of this bug, none of which, amazingly
enough, are from PS/2 keyboard users.

> I've examined the driver in 2.4.19 and am fairly confident that it is
> not responsible for inserting unexpected release events.

Perhaps; but then you are always confident that you're right and that
your packages are correct and you always resolve ambiguity in your own
favor.  This is a poor attitude that does not promote cooperation in the
Project, and probably explains why so many developers and users find you
so difficult to work with.

You'll note from the ages of these bug reports that I have not been
hasty in concluding that this was a kernel problem.  As opposed to say,
a package maintainer who doesn't read the reports before reassigning
them, and concludes they're not his problem within hours of receiving
them (within seconds, for all I know -- or perhaps seeing the control
message from "Branden Robinson" reassigning bugs to you was all you
really required to make your decision).

> This means that if they're are seeing unexpected release events, then
> it must be coming from the hardware.

You haven't established this at all.

> Now X is reading the keyboard in raw mode, that means the kernel passes
> whatever it gets from the hardware to X.  It is up to X to deal with
> any weirdness that's coming from the hardware, in particular those
> release events which are unexpected should be dealt with correctly.

First we need to rule out the possibility that the kernel isn't
synthesizing bogus events due to a bug, and that hasn't been done.

In any event, whether XFree86 should work around hardware or kernel bugs
is orthogonal to whether those bugs actually exist or not.

Even assuming you are correct in all details (which is already
demonstrably untrue), a proper bug report against XFree86 would be
"please apply patch to ignore weirdness from keyboard hardware" and
severity wishlist.

I am reassigning these bugs back to the kernel.  Do not reassign these
bugs back to me; this is either a kernel or a hardware issue.  By your
own theory, any application that reads from the keyboard in raw mode
will reveal the behavior in question.  The XFree86 X server merely
happens to be one commonly-used application with that characteristic.

If you refuse to countenance the possibility that the kernel is at
fault, then I suggest you close the bugs with an appropriate
explanation.  Before doing so, however, I recommend that you actually
lend some weight to the testimony of the many users who have reported
this problem -- both in bug reports and in the mail messages referenced
above.  For a start, you can do this by actually reading the reports
that have been written, instead of telling NewWorld PowerMac users that
their PS/2 keyboards are flaky.

I look forward to you handling these reports in a thoughtful and mature
manner, and not with the knee-jerk it's-not-my-problem response that you
typically exhibit, presumably because you feel that reducing the number
of bugs assigned to you is an end in itself.  We are here to serve our
users and the free software community, not increase our "karma"
according to Dirk Eddelbuettel[1].  Sometimes that service requires
tracking down bugs that we aren't personally responsible for creating.

[1] http://master.debian.org/~edd/karma.txt

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |     If God had intended for man to go
Debian GNU/Linux                   |     about naked, we would have been
branden@debian.org                 |     born that way.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |

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