Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 23.128.96.18 as permitted sender) client-ip=23.128.96.18;
Date:   Wed, 12 May 2021 10:01:35 -0700
From:   Mark Greer <mgreer@animalcreek.com>
To:     Frieder Schrempf <frieder.schrempf@kontron.de>
Cc:     Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@canonical.com>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>, netdev@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-nfc@lists.01.org,
        Alex Blasche <alexander.blasche@qt.io>,
        Mark Greer <mgreer@animalcreek.com>
Subject: Re: [linux-nfc] [PATCH 1/2] MAINTAINERS: nfc: add Krzysztof
 Kozlowski as maintainer
Message-ID: <20210512170135.GB222094@animalcreek.com>
References: <20210512144319.30852-1-krzysztof.kozlowski@canonical.com>
 <14e78a9a-ed1a-9d7d-b854-db6d811f4622@kontron.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <14e78a9a-ed1a-9d7d-b854-db6d811f4622@kontron.de>
Organization: Animal Creek Technologies, Inc.
Precedence: bulk

On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 05:32:35PM +0200, Frieder Schrempf wrote:
> On 12.05.21 16:43, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> > The NFC subsystem is orphaned.  I am happy to spend some cycles to
> > review the patches, send pull requests and in general keep the NFC
> > subsystem running.
> 
> That's great, thanks!
> 
> Maybe you also want to have a look at the userspace side and talk to Mark Greer (on cc). He recently said, that he is supposed to be taking over maintenance for the neard daemon (see this thread: [1]) which currently looks like it's close to being dead (no release for several years, etc.).
> 
> I don't know much about the NFC stack and if/how people use it, but without reliable and maintained userspace tooling, the whole thing seems of little use in the long run. Qt has already dropped their neard support for Qt 6 [2], which basically means the mainline NFC stack won't be supported anymore in one of the most common application frameworks for IoT/embedded.
> 
> [1] https://lists.01.org/hyperkitty/list/linux-nfc@lists.01.org/thread/OHD5IQHYPFUPUFYWDMNSVCBNO24M45VK/
> [2] https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-81824

Re: QT - I've already talked to Alex Blasche from QT (CC'd).  With some
work we can get Linux NFC/neard back into their good graces.  I/we need
to find time to put in the work, though.

An example of the issues they have seen is:

	https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-43802

Another issue I have--and I suspect you, Krzysztof, have as well--is
lack of hardware.  If anyone reading this wants to volunteer to be a
tester, please speak up.

To help get everyone on the same page, this is a response I made to
Krzysztof in another email:

    "Krzysztof, the NFC portion of the kernel has a counterpart in userspace
     called neard.  I'm supposed to be maintaining it but I have next to no
     time to do so.  If you have spare cycles, any help would be appreciated.

     Anyway, in neard, there are some simple test scripts (python2 - I/we need
     to update to python3).  The current home of neard is:

     git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/network/nfc/neard.git"

Thanks,

Mark
--