Seems that Albert found out the fix to make evdev not use the device, and it seems to only affect 64bit installations (which would explain why I wasn't able to reproduce this since I have a 32bit system):
Check bug 284951, which is the new master bug about that. It will be fixed before release. It also means that no fdi-file tricks are needed in order to use joysticks. The X joystick driver on the other hand still needs HAL to list the device as input.joystick.
Seems that Albert found out the fix to make evdev not use the device, and it seems to only affect 64bit installations (which would explain why I wasn't able to reproduce this since I have a 32bit system):
Check bug 284951, which is the new master bug about that. It will be fixed before release. It also means that no fdi-file tricks are needed in order to use joysticks. The X joystick driver on the other hand still needs HAL to list the device as input.joystick.