Comment 15 for bug 448446

I've adapted jstest to simply loop while reading the joystick, which is what jstest --normal does. I'm attaching the source here; simply build it using
        gcc -O2 jskeepalive.c -o jskeepalive
then run it as follows:
        ./jskeepalive /dev/input/js0

If that fixes your joystick, I'll add it to the package along with an explanation. If you'd like me to provide udev rules, let me know!