ftape with kernel version 2.6.xx

[Cilantro]

Hello,
I read on the web somewhere that starting with version 2.6.20 ftape is no longer supported. The post read something like "There are not that many folks using ftape anyway...", well guess what, I'm one of them.
Also versions previous 2.6.xx have ftape disabled in make menuconfig.
This is poor practice in my opinion; why take a supported device away, when it was added to the kernel only in 2.2 and onwards? (I think)
How could this happen? Open source software is supposed to be against doing this sort of stuff.

[ph34r]

Well, its open, so you can always put it back in. The option may be disabled in make menuconfig based on other choices you made (prompt for experimental, etc).

If it were me, I'd go back to an earlier 2.6.x kernel, grab the ftape sources from it, and see if you can compile it as a stand alone module