On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Devin Heitmueller wrote:

The biggest challenge with that approach is that lirc is still
maintained out-of-kernel, and the inputdev solution does not require
lirc at all (which is good for inexperienced end users who want their
product to "just work").

If distros started packing lirc as a basic system daemon things would
generally just work too.  After all, there is plenty of other user space
software one needs to do anything.

The other big issue is that right now remotes get associated
automaticallywith products as part of the device profile.  While this
has the disadvantage that there is not a uniform mechanism to specify
a different remote than the one that ships with the product, it does
have the advantage of the product working "out-of-the-box" with
whatever remote it came with.  It's a usability issue, but what I
would consider a pretty important one.

lirc isn't limited to one remote at a time.  You can have many different
remotes supported at once.  So it's not always necessary to know which
remote you have before the remote will work.