On Thursday, May 02, 2013 04:30:01 PM Todd Showalter wrote:

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Dmitry Torokhov

[off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

No, I do not think so. Kernel provides a level of abstraction, but so
does X, ALSA, given desktop environment and so forth. If a task does not
require hardware access (and translating input events form one type to
another does not) one should think really hard whether it should be
done in kernel.

    What's the scope of acceptable changes in-kernel?  I'd like to fix
as much of this as possible in the kernel; if the rest has to happen
in a library, so be it.

    Would you be open to considering some sort of ioctl() that exports
a mapping table?  The PS3 controller mappings are completely wonky,
and even the xbox and xbox 360 controllers are less than ideal.  If we
could pull a mapping table out of the dev node at least it would let
us fix the common cases.

What information does kernel have in this case than userspace does not? Having 
a static table compiled in kernel and available via ioctl and having the same 
data in a file on disk is no different, with the exception that data on disk 
does not take kernel memory and user can much more easily "play" with it.

I am pretty sure it should be also much more easy to have a distribution pick 
up a new mapping than to convince them to take a kernel patch.

Thanks.

-- 
Dmitry