Hello, 2013/8/13 Frank Marien <frank@apsu.be>:
Thomas,
I don't have the answers to your questions, exactly.. What I do know is that despite the fork involved with SmartCardServices, the pcsc-lite project still builds on OSX, out-of-the-box (given macports and proper command-line tools), and it could therefore quite easily be packaged by "a third party" that would require an up-to-date pcscd/ccid combo. We've been investigating doing exactly that and so your scenario may be quite imminent.
As the maintainer of the "official" pcsc-lite I try to make it buildable and usable on Mac OS X. First because I need a modern pcsc-lite to develop the CCID driver. Second because I still expect a convergence of the two pcsc-lite (official and Apple fork) one day. But that is a lot of work.
We're wondering about the future, also. I don't really see how we can continue to support the OSX platform, or begin supporting iOS, without at least some information from the manufacturer.
I have no information regarding the CDSA substitute. But I guess/hope Apple will not drop pcsc-lite and the smart card infrastructure. Bye -- Dr. Ludovic Rousseau