--- In "Jesse Off" <> wrote:
[ snip ... intentionally avoiding flame wars ]
>
> >
> > > My problem is the SD flash card interface is patented and its
> governing body
> > > doesn't allow release of open source drivers for the SD
> interface.
> >
> > That's not true, we have SD drivers in the Linux kernel now.
>
> They are probably MMC drivers, not full SD. SD cards are backward
> compatible with MMC. Either that or they were developed illegally or
> reverse engineered in a country that allows that. SD association
> licenses are pretty clear. You might be able to get away with it if
> you don't use the word "SD" in any marketing, advertising, or
> documentation for your product but that seems a dishonest way to do
> business.
>
> //Jesse Off
>
Well, the SD Association has released two or three revisions of a SD
Host Control Interface, SDHCI, specification [1], allowing open source
drivers to be written for many controllers [2]. This is what has been
accepted into the kernel, since 2.6.17 I believe, and is in active
development [3]. The released SDHCI spec is simplified, lacking
mostly the DRM info, AFAIK.
I guess this discussion is in the TS-7000 group since TS delivers only
a binary object file SD.o for SD card support. Obviously this is a
stumbling block for those of us who prefer 2.6 kernels.
I can see why TS prefers this, (SD NDA in effect when they bought the
earlier spec from the association), but are there any other issues?
Is there TS ip that needs to be protected?
Can TS take a look at the released spec, and say "Yes, that has a good
chance of working with our SD slot via our FPGA"? Or "No, it's close
but you need these changes ..."?
Of course I can't expect TS to support 2.6 kernels; I disagree with,
but respect their decision. But a few hints to help a community
written & supported SD driver would mean everybody wins.
Regards, ....... Charlie
[1] http://www.sdcard.org/HostController/index.html
[2] http://mmc.drzeus.cx/wiki/Controllers/SDHCI
[3] http://osdir.com/ml/linux.drivers.sdhci.devel/
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