7 ms·

It's so odd they don't publish the source. You'd think an organization like this which at least claims to have strong opinions about how sd card formatting shou

It's so odd they don't publish the source. You'd think an organization like this which at least claims to have strong opinions about how sd card formatting should work would want to actually communicate what those opinions are.

bayindirh 1y ago
How can you license the correct formatting process and create a sweet recurring value stream for the shareholders of the SD Card Association if you open source this? Are you a communist? /s Jokes aside. I'd love to see this standardized and widely available with a document why SD cards needs to be formatted this way, but I think everyone is afraid that someone's patent or secret or something will be revealed, and its library form is probably, really a revenue stream for them. Shortsighted, I may say.
numpad0 1y ago
It's also an organization created by Panasonic, SanDisk, and Toshiba. The entire FOSS scene are technically irrelevant to those companies - you might think software like Linux Kernel would be pretty important, but that tech is available to everybody, which makes it just a constant. Also, this tool exists to fix card errors at field and reduce support costs, not to advocate their superior jutsu of formatting. The latter is not the point.
- rollcat 1y ago
  I wonder how much money have these three companies made from FOSS in the last quarter alone. I guess they don't know either, it's easy to take all of that work for granted.
  - numpad0 1y ago
    They also tend to buy Linux from someone, often MontaVista last I did some Googling long time ago... The fundamental problem, I think, is that FOSS didn't really take off in Japan the way it did in US/EU, for some reason. There are tons of code-literate engineers but way less who would be sympathetic with developer community building, code sharing, licensing discussions, etc., that are more common in communities from US/EU.
    - rbanffy 1y ago
      > There are tons of code-literate engineers but way less who would be sympathetic with developer community building, code sharing, licensing discussions, etc., that are more common in communities from US/EU I find these cultural differences very interesting. I wonder why it’s that way. I noticed some lower willingness to share work (and any form of bad news) in more competitive societies, but I’m unsure this would be the case. Culture eats strategy for breakfast
    - rollcat 1y ago
      Japan is Japan, most of their history can be summarised as isolationism/NIH. Software developers are also not seen as "real" engineers there. They're just typing words into a computer, right?
      - smaudet 1y ago
        That might explain why their software never took off to the same extent that the US's did, despite having been leaders in the hardware space. You can of course "just program" the same way you can "just build" a car out of plywood and some electric motors, however the presence of an engineering mindset (and tools/resources) is what separates a fire hazard from a Ferrari.
        jsndndd 1y ago
        What exactly separates a fire hazard from a Ferrari? Those vehicles are notoriously unreliable
- smaudet 1y ago
  > The latter is not the point On the one hand, I get that and I get that you might not want to take criticism etc on a small utility that you create... However, on the other hand, if this such a pervasive issue as to merit an official "correct" implementation, then I would think you would want more implementations working correctly, so that your brand behaves more consistently, correctly, across impls.
- ok123456 1y ago
  There was a period of time when linux only supported MMCs (the forerunner standards), because none of the partner members provided updated SD card drivers. This limitation meant you were limited to using older media that capped out at 128MB. This was a significant problem with using Linux on PDAs.
05 1y ago
Doubly idiotic since just running it under strace and feeding that to a LLM would get you an open source version in no time..
- rollcat 1y ago
  You now need an LLM to go thru write calls?
  - BenjiWiebe 1y ago
    I used an AI to help reverse engineer a weird JS login flow so I could automate it. I could've done it without AI (I've done it before) but it would've taken me 20x longer.
uyjulian 1y ago
Someone actually reverse engineered the formatting and made a open source tool that does the equivalent on Linux: https://github.com/profi200/sdFormatLinux https://github.com/profi200/sdFormatLinux
- jamesy0ung 1y ago
  Amazing timing - I had it up in ghidra and stumbled on this comment through google!
gustafla 1y ago
I think one of the reasons for the proprietary licensing is that this software is built with Tuxera IP. As is typical for a mostly B2B software company, Tuxera wants to keep potentially advantageous features and optimizations proprietary.
- rbanffy 1y ago
  A surprising name for a company so decided to keep IP secret.

bayindirh 1y ago

How can you license the correct formatting process and create a sweet recurring value stream for the shareholders of the SD Card Association if you open source this? Are you a communist? /s Jokes aside. I'd love to see this standardized and widely available with a document why SD cards needs to be formatted this way, but I think everyone is afraid that someone's patent or secret or something will be revealed, and its library form is probably, really a revenue stream for them. Shortsighted, I may say.

numpad0 1y ago

It's also an organization created by Panasonic, SanDisk, and Toshiba. The entire FOSS scene are technically irrelevant to those companies - you might think software like Linux Kernel would be pretty important, but that tech is available to everybody, which makes it just a constant. Also, this tool exists to fix card errors at field and reduce support costs, not to advocate their superior jutsu of formatting. The latter is not the point.

rollcat 1y ago
I wonder how much money have these three companies made from FOSS in the last quarter alone. I guess they don't know either, it's easy to take all of that work for granted.
- numpad0 1y ago
  They also tend to buy Linux from someone, often MontaVista last I did some Googling long time ago... The fundamental problem, I think, is that FOSS didn't really take off in Japan the way it did in US/EU, for some reason. There are tons of code-literate engineers but way less who would be sympathetic with developer community building, code sharing, licensing discussions, etc., that are more common in communities from US/EU.
  - rbanffy 1y ago
    > There are tons of code-literate engineers but way less who would be sympathetic with developer community building, code sharing, licensing discussions, etc., that are more common in communities from US/EU I find these cultural differences very interesting. I wonder why it’s that way. I noticed some lower willingness to share work (and any form of bad news) in more competitive societies, but I’m unsure this would be the case. Culture eats strategy for breakfast
  - rollcat 1y ago
    Japan is Japan, most of their history can be summarised as isolationism/NIH. Software developers are also not seen as "real" engineers there. They're just typing words into a computer, right?
    - smaudet 1y ago
      That might explain why their software never took off to the same extent that the US's did, despite having been leaders in the hardware space. You can of course "just program" the same way you can "just build" a car out of plywood and some electric motors, however the presence of an engineering mindset (and tools/resources) is what separates a fire hazard from a Ferrari.
      - jsndndd 1y ago
        What exactly separates a fire hazard from a Ferrari? Those vehicles are notoriously unreliable
smaudet 1y ago
> The latter is not the point On the one hand, I get that and I get that you might not want to take criticism etc on a small utility that you create... However, on the other hand, if this such a pervasive issue as to merit an official "correct" implementation, then I would think you would want more implementations working correctly, so that your brand behaves more consistently, correctly, across impls.
ok123456 1y ago
There was a period of time when linux only supported MMCs (the forerunner standards), because none of the partner members provided updated SD card drivers. This limitation meant you were limited to using older media that capped out at 128MB. This was a significant problem with using Linux on PDAs.

05 1y ago

Doubly idiotic since just running it under strace and feeding that to a LLM would get you an open source version in no time..

rollcat 1y ago
You now need an LLM to go thru write calls?
- BenjiWiebe 1y ago
  I used an AI to help reverse engineer a weird JS login flow so I could automate it. I could've done it without AI (I've done it before) but it would've taken me 20x longer.

uyjulian 1y ago

Someone actually reverse engineered the formatting and made a open source tool that does the equivalent on Linux: https://github.com/profi200/sdFormatLinux https://github.com/profi200/sdFormatLinux

jamesy0ung 1y ago
Amazing timing - I had it up in ghidra and stumbled on this comment through google!

gustafla 1y ago

I think one of the reasons for the proprietary licensing is that this software is built with Tuxera IP. As is typical for a mostly B2B software company, Tuxera wants to keep potentially advantageous features and optimizations proprietary.

rbanffy 1y ago
A surprising name for a company so decided to keep IP secret.