The case of the stalled CPU controller

If I can recall correctly each distribution shipped their own downstream patch with different naming scheme ( with the fallout from user trying to use patch(es) between distributions ), One patch was neeeded for each kernel version 2.4, 2.5 2.6 etc and in Fedora they broke backwards compatibility support at least one time with <4.0 SquashFS without even mentioning they intended to do so "surprises" to everyone using earlier versions of.

I interpret the above historic scenario as 5 years of failure not a 5 year success at pressuring the upstream kernel community to finally merge something because it was so wildly deployed,used and tested by downstream distributions.

And did it finally get merged due to the above reason or was that because of something entirely different to that?

Does anyone here possess the historic knowledge to confirm that was the root cause for it being merged in the first place?