Well, it's worth noting that Linux backward compatibility is not absolute guarantee, but rather "if feature is removed in a forest and nobody is around to hear

Well, it's worth noting that Linux backward compatibility is not absolute guarantee, but rather "if feature is removed in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, then it's not a backward compatibility break". Eg. for instance the removal of a.out support: https://lwn.net/Articles/888741/ https://lwn.net/Articles/888741/ - the a.out support was almost removed, until a single user happened to notice and object. But then someone came up with a workaround and that single (known) remaining a.out user changed his code, and the a.out support was deleted.