Microchip MOST150 video bridge for automotive infotainment
A bridge that exposes video streams carried over Microchip's MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport) bus to Linux's V4L2 video subsystem. MOST is a specialised in-vehicle networking technology used mainly in automotive infotainment systems to move audio, video, and control data between head units, displays, cameras, and amplifiers.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting as niche, because the underlying Microchip MOST150 controllers (such as the OS81118) are still listed as in production for automotive use and the code is still receiving real maintenance, including a race-condition fix in February 2026 and further cleanups in April 2026. Deployment outside car infotainment stacks is minimal and there is no replacement driver covering the same MOST-to-V4L2 path, so leaving it in staging with a clear note about its narrow scope is the sensible call.
repository signals
sources
- spinics.net
A February 2026 v2 bug-fix patch specifically for drivers/staging/most/video/video.c was reviewed on linux-staging, showing active maintenance rather than abandonment or removal.
- spinics.net
An April 8, 2026 patch touched most/video again to replace BUG_ON() with WARN_ON(), indicating current upstream cleanup activity and no visible removal thread for this directory.
- microchip.com
Microchip lists the OS81118 MOST150 Intelligent Network Interface Controller as 'In Production', so at least one directly relevant MOST150 part was still sold new after 2025.
- microchip.com
Microchip still documents MOST NetServices for MOST150 devices including OS81110, OS81118, and OS81119, suggesting an extant vendor-supported ecosystem for this transport family.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_MOST_VIDEO continuing through modern kernel series and identifies this directory as the most_video module, confirming it remains present upstream.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local inspection via `exec_command` showed a real V4L2 component built as `most_video`, bridging Linux V4L2 onto the MOST core rather than a helper-only subtree. Local `git log` via `exec_command` showed substantive touches in 2025-2026, including a real race fix on 2026-02-07. Because `lei` was unavailable and MCP lore endpoints were not exposed here, mailing-list evidence was obtained with web `search_query`, which found active 2025-2026 spinics threads but no removal/deprecation series for this directory. Vendor status and deployment evidence were obtained with web `search_query` on Microchip pages: MOST150 INIC silicon is still in production, but the use case is specialized automotive infotainment/media transport, so present-day deployment is best classified as low rather than none. There is no obvious upstream replacement driver covering the same MOST-to-V4L2 transport niche; the right call is to keep it, but annotate it as niche staging code with narrow modern deployment.