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> the various Linux distributions let the ticket wait for a few years, then mass close them with "applies to old version".

How recent is your experience, I have found this not to be really true anymore, at least for the past few years.

This is an issue in the kernel. You don't report this to the distro vendor but to the appropriate kernel mailing list. In this case the interface to user space is broken AND it's a regression, so it would be appropriate to cc: Linus. Chances are high it's fixed in the next -rc release (i.e. within a week).

I mean, that is a great point. Bug fixing in general is not a sexy part of hackerdom. No one remarks about how great project X is with replying and fixing their bugs. It's like a working toilet, people only care once it no longer works.