From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 553D622D7B5 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:18:46 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1776410326; cv=none; b=V+tSTlgptnahRHec0dYvqeBUQzaQcQGg292RwoGuHWCdkkmwFuQAR3vES9FznU71WTpr57gWD25/XPWktwlRmDEwu7NMWX9L+1994iqWEYmLCTFCQVU6mYtNfqy2lQYI5EKO9WU/ibR9l0GKonjKmkNM8fu9grzbI7bKZWuGw98= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1776410326; c=relaxed/simple; bh=SbkQOqnlJMUyvn6jeGoIt9IAjUY6lWSbGX25S380vrI=; h=Message-ID:Date:MIME-Version:Subject:To:Cc:References:From: In-Reply-To:Content-Type; b=ODCx6gC542tgvJCwmrQ1toDz7lPsgqxClmitqCIOf2gb0eQOq6NZX4G4CPBDVxAtIuRrD65WBGA3LlcJ+Fmqadkxnc8obeVioslPpR7mwbaZDt9z91k9gQZcF6ZbAzYDzKBdaiYTZRwiQOtWX7eSX9vAGtny64UchM7DndpEjX4= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=j6hDWLfL; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="j6hDWLfL" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 2B03AC19425; Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:18:43 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1776410326; bh=SbkQOqnlJMUyvn6jeGoIt9IAjUY6lWSbGX25S380vrI=; h=Date:Subject:To:Cc:References:From:In-Reply-To:From; b=j6hDWLfLnVB3avzara6y7yvBqQBNd+w1mVreP5hKZn/Asx6pjBRVyrQ8/Q5K4xwHb zXkS5WOyCWqT3hBNK1YnsKEMQlUOeFasgtwTnLRAiNW3KyCqhtSQWxiPSUP2vdCimp Ym8omEm5uojYclDB0bpJxuk9IjRBkiIaI19TcK6gYk6Nz2mr9cj/ozGpyMbsPJ184Q 8KUcEaLlAWzRIg1PVj5eFcQDceDngKAMvR8Vfc7kgz8wP8wYbYBD27j7YAANh1Mf5m sngOOS9lYxuEgo45J5sAC/ddATL8MddALk6qSKfIlCiZtYtAAJDvjq2fXoZspkgjuv T/Z6cz9HCgCoA== Message-ID: <9c4a4acf-b4f1-4e84-93bf-cdf080cb9970@kernel.org> Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:18:42 +0200 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: netdev@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Subject: Re: Path forward for NFC in the kernel To: Jakub Kicinski , Michael Thalmeier , Raymond Hackley , Michael Walle , Bongsu Jeon , Mark Greer , David Heidelberg Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org References: <20260416101041.4c533306@kernel.org> From: Krzysztof Kozlowski Content-Language: en-US Autocrypt: addr=krzk@kernel.org; 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charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 16/04/2026 19:10, Jakub Kicinski wrote: > Hi folks! > > We are struggling to keep up with the number of security reports and AI > generated patches in the kernel. NFC is infamous for being a huge CVE > magnet. We need someone to step up as a maintainer, create an NFC tree > and handle all the incoming submissions. Send us (or Linus if you > prefer) periodic PRs, like WiFi, Bluetooth etc. do. If that does not > happen I'm afraid we'll have to move the NFC code out of the tree, > put it up on GH or some such, and let it accumulate CVEs there.. > > I'm planning to send a PR to Linus to shed the unmaintained code early > next week. We need to have a maintainer established by then. +Cc David Heidelberg recently trying to use Linux NFC stack, Just "collecting" patches is not a big deal, I could do this, but actually reviewing the patches with necessary due diligence is the effort I could not provide in a reasonable time frame. And picking up patches without proper review feels risky... NFC has a long history of issues, first mostly pointed out by syzbot but now apparently by AI tools. The code base is quite old, with no major improvements or testings happening but not in a way "oh, it's stable and working like 'cp' command" but rather "no one knows how many bugs are on top of each other and if it actually still works". Syzbot and AI reported bugs encourage random drive-by fixes by people not testing the code, thus particular bug report might be fixed, but for example NFC stops working and no one knows that. Does anyone knows if the NFC stack/drivers actually works fine? Did anyone test actual devices? If not, then moving to Github would be even more reasonable. Another point is that AFAIU, most of real world devices, like Android-based phones, don't use the Linux NFC stack but their custom HAL/user-space based libraries and drivers. Some other non-Android projects use libnfc userspace, which seems to be maintained only as bugfix (https://github.com/nfc-tools/libnfc/commits/master/). Best regards, Krzysztof