There are dark areas of the kernel where only the bravest hackers dare to tread. Places where the code is twisted, the requirements are complex, and everything depends on ancient code which has seen little change over the years because even the most qualified developers fear the consequences. Arguably, no part of the kernel is darker and scarier than the serial terminal (TTY) code. Recently, this code was getting a much-needed update, but it now appears that a disconnect within the community has brought that work to a halt and thrown TTY back into the "unmaintained" column - at a time when that code has known regressions in the 2.6.31-rc kernel.