[jeffjeffbear]

> Haven't used Linux in forever, but middle-click to paste was like the one thing that consistently worked everywhere.

That's because it was an X11 thing, and everyone used X11.

[AshamedCaptain]

X11 doesnt really define those things. Policy, not mechanism.

[kevin_thibedeau]

X heavily relied on the primary and secondary selections for performing operations in lieu of an explicit clipboard. It is built into the protocol. The only policy is where that paste binding defaulted to.

[bluGill]

While X11 didn't define it, the defaults were such that it would be harder to write a program that didn't do that then one that did in many cases.