Intel's USB 3.0 for Linux

In the Linux Magazine piece itself, it specifically states that USB will "officially" be in 2.6.31 :

Quoting:Greg Kroah-Hartman already queued the patches for Kernel 2.6.31, "so Linux users should have official USB 3.0 support around September 2009. This means that Linux will be the first operating system with official USB 3.0 support" wrote Sharp, who was also active at Open Source Bridge in Portland, OR. The source code mostly under her name is on git.kernel.org

Yet how really tested, stable, and efficient will USB 3.0 really be in the 2.6.31 kernel ??

As noted in the Linux Magazine piece itself, one of the stickier points is the fact that the code for the USB 3.0 xHCI host controller is under an NDA. From the latest 2.6.30-git20 kernel revision changelog, found at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/snapshots/patch-... , Intel "Geekess" Sarah Sharp last contributed to the work on this on Mon Apr 27, and furthermore, the required Intel Contributor's agreement (http://www.intel.com/technology/usb/xhcispec.htm) could indeed significantly delay USB 3.0 code-review and testing by the F/OSS Developer Ccommunity.

Quoting:the code for the USB 3.0 xHCI host controller is under an NDA

Is it the code or documentation? I don't think anyone in Linux would accept code they can't see...

@jezuch: There are binary blobs in the kernel now -- code that can't be seen.

AFAIK the only binary blobs are various firmware (the constant source of controversy), which is a bit different thing than kernel code itself. Any other attempt to add non-visible code to the kernel is soundly rejected.