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Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

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Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#51

Post by entropicdrifter »

binary132 wrote: post #47
mlindner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing out silly and absurd strawmen attacks like "you're trying to convince everyone to switch over to the religion as promulgated by Rust" is anything but "perfectly reasonable".

maybe. but is it really FALSE? anyway, the point of the resignation is not wanting to deal with all this, not necessarily taking a side, so I’m not even disagreeing with you. But obviously, it is a disagreeable atmosphere. I don’t find that debatable, even if that’s due to people feeling paranoid about a (nonexistent?) rust religious takeover. I think we can all admit Rust definitely has its ideologues and cult acoly…

Yes, it's really false. They weren't saying that maintainers couldn't change the API nor that the maintainers who changed the API had to update the Rust part, just that they needed to tell the Rust maintainers what they did and what they intended so that they could correctly encode their underlying assumptions in code.

In other words, they simply requested adequate documentation and the response was "I'M NOT LEARNING RUST AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME", effectively. That is nontechnical nonsense

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#52

Post by rc00 »

laerus wrote: post #10
pseudony wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be obvious ? The concern from those contributors (and we might soon see the same in QEMU) is that these bindings are essentially a weaponization which forces the great majority of contributors to learn Rust or drop out. Essentially a hostile takeover. If I am contributing to the Linux kernel already, I presumably have a decent grasp of C, the central abstractions in the code I am changing, the email-based…

Well then raise these concerns and find a way to solve them together. Not dismiss a proven solution to real and even dangerous problems like memory unsafety. It's unreasonable for educated grown men to react like 12yo children and resist change cause "we don't like eating our vegetables even though they are good for our health". If you actually care about the Linux kernel you will find a way forward even if that mean…

This is a horrible comment, much like many of the others on this thread. The long-time contributors to the Linux kernel project have been doing so before there was any "prestige" or resume credentials attached. And if it was just about a resume, wouldn't they have moved on already? This is an ill-conceived take and just another example of some of the pro-Rust crowd being far too unknowledgeable to be upset.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#53

Post by still_grokking »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #45

> I truly believe the future of kernels is with memory-safe languages. I am no visionary but if Linux doesn't internalize this, I'm afraid some other kernel will do to it what it did to Unix. This is why I want to work on multi-kernel NixOS — I want to make this threat as credible as possible. If ever new kennel requires one to switch to an entirely different user land arbitrarily, they're just imposing stupid switch…

Debian is already ported (in parts) to different kernels.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#54

Post by rc00 »

I'm at the point of wishing for the Rust experiment in the Linux kernel to be over. It's become an over-dramatic culture clash of a distraction, taking away from the valuable time that the already over-burdened kernel developers have available. Combine that with the veiled threats and passive aggressive tone of the email and it is all a turn-off.

Let the Rust folks go off and do their own kernel project(s). If they can come up with something feasibly better, it will be adopted and they can displace the current C-based Linux kernel. Based on what I've seen of Rust and the crowd that has taken to it, this does not seem a likely outcome. (Worse yet, maintainers are dropping Rust packages for practical reasons.) Still, they should try so that they can see for themselves while leaving the current developers to their existing affairs.

Like parents separating two fighting children, both sides of this need to be pulled away and kept separated. The Rust crowd can go off and have their own project(s) and the Linux kernel can continue being only C-based. And never the twain shall meet. If the Rust crowd manages to build something better, it will replace the alternative. If not, they need to accept the reasons why without pleading to social media masses. We've seen PipeWire come along and replace PulseAudio. We've seen X11 keep a stronghold over Wayland. To the Rust crowd, focus your energy on building something somewhere else that you feel is better. To the Linux kernel developer crowd, it's time to move on from this experiment for everyone's peace of mind.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#55

Post by still_grokking »

pseudony wrote: post #46
SSLy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you labor under such uncertainty and creeping adoption for a year or two, raise the points ad nauseam, get no concrete answers and NOT, at some point, lose your patience ? Yep, that's what was happening to the RfL devs.

Nope. RfL was accepted as an experiment[0], with the understanding that it CAN be ejected again if the evaluation fails. Its mandate was as an opt-in functionality, primarily left for individual maintainers to decide on whether to use and leaf-nodes to use. It is very likely that this was the very best the RfL project could hope for at that time. Had they pushed for first-class citizenship, other contributors would,…

There is a flaw in this reasoning.

Nobody ever said that a subsystem maintainer needs to fix Rust bindings.

As Ts'o correctly states, that's the problem of the bindings maintainers.

But there is no problem at all. All that the Rust people want is to be informed about breaking changes. Also they said they're happy to get instructions on the semantics of the C APIs. They seem to want to collaborate. The C people just want them out, as it seems looking at this episode.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#56

Post by still_grokking »

rc00 wrote: post #54

I'm at the point of wishing for the Rust experiment in the Linux kernel to be over. It's become an over-dramatic culture clash of a distraction, taking away from the valuable time that the already over-burdened kernel developers have available. Combine that with the veiled threats and passive aggressive tone of the email and it is all a turn-off. Let the Rust folks go off and do their own kernel project(s). If they c…

I don't think this would go well for Linux.

The companies actually paying for the kernel development want Rust. That's a matter of fact.

Just see who's sponsoring the Linux Foundation, and check what they said elsewhere about their long term commitment to Rust.

The main sponsors would likely just fork Linux should Rust be removed again. Than Linux would be left with "community contributions" and the trademarks, but all the big money would go to the fork.

Of course nothing like that will happen. Because Linus knows very well where the money is coming from.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#57

Post by rc00 »

still_grokking wrote: post #56
rc00 wrote: post #54

I'm at the point of wishing for the Rust experiment in the Linux kernel to be over. It's become an over-dramatic culture clash of a distraction, taking away from the valuable time that the already over-burdened kernel developers have available. Combine that with the veiled threats and passive aggressive tone of the email and it is all a turn-off. Let the Rust folks go off and do their own kernel project(s). If they c…

I don't think this would go well for Linux. The companies actually paying for the kernel development want Rust. That's a matter of fact. Just see who's sponsoring the Linux Foundation, and check what they said elsewhere about their long term commitment to Rust. The main sponsors would likely just fork Linux should Rust be removed again. Than Linux would be left with "community contributions" and the trademarks, but a…

> The companies actually paying for the kernel development want Rust. That's a matter of fact.

This is news to me. Are there any actual grants or contracts that stipulate this? Can you provide any links to that effect?

> Just see who's sponsoring the Linux Foundation, and check what they said elsewhere about their long term commitment to Rust.

Is it the same people at these corporations? Are you assuming companies with five or six figures of employees have a unified stance on this? Or anything? If there was such a commitment to Rust, why not pull funding and cut a check to Redox? Or shift funds gradually over time? This is a head-scratching statement.

> The main sponsors would likely just fork Linux should Rust be removed again.

This is an asinine take. Three decades and millions of lines of code will not be simply forked overnight. These are the kinds of veiled threats that need to stop, especially when attached to such delusional levels of toxic wishful thinking.

Arguing in bad faith is destructive to the overall conversation.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#58

Post by almatabata »

rc00 wrote: post #57
still_grokking wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this would go well for Linux. The companies actually paying for the kernel development want Rust. That's a matter of fact. Just see who's sponsoring the Linux Foundation, and check what they said elsewhere about their long term commitment to Rust. The main sponsors would likely just fork Linux should Rust be removed again. Than Linux would be left with "community contributions" and the trademarks, but a…

> The companies actually paying for the kernel development want Rust. That's a matter of fact. This is news to me. Are there any actual grants or contracts that stipulate this? Can you provide any links to that effect? > Just see who's sponsoring the Linux Foundation, and check what they said elsewhere about their long term commitment to Rust. Is it the same people at these corporations? Are you assuming companies wi…

> If there was such a commitment to Rust, why not pull funding and cut a check to Redox?

You have an existent product line running on Linux. It looks like a no brainer to just get rust into Linux so you do not have to rewrite all your userspace code to work on Redox. You can keep your own drivers as well. You can gradually migrate piece by piece.

It looks simpler to fork the existing code base than support a brand new unproven OS where you do not even know if it will perform the same as your current one. The amount of investment looks smaller with the fork but maybe I miss something.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#59

Post by francasso »

simjnd wrote: post #33
masfoobar wrote: post #6

I try to sit on the fence when it comes to Rust and the Linux kernel. On one end, is Rust the right choice to be included... over others such as Zig or (perhaps) Odin? Are we 10 years too soon to include a "safe language" ???? Then again, we have Linus Torvolds who, in the last 20 years, has been hell-bent against including C++ in the kernel despite backlash.. yet.. he has accepted Rust a year or so ago. He obviously…

> I understand the backlash especially veterans who have put in their efforts on the kernel and have no wish to learn Rust. I am sure there are plenty of Rust people throwing their world views opinions yet barely wrote anything decent in C, if at all. If you watch the video Wedson linked to in his email, you will see a fragment of the typical experience of a Linux Rust kernel maintainer. Rust in the kernel does not a…

If a big chunk of a project is written in a language, you end up having to learn that language, unless you deal only with a very isolated piece.

I don't see how this case would be different.

Re: Retiring from the Rust for Linux Project – Wedson Almeida Filho

#60

Post by pdmccormick »

still_grokking wrote: post #56
rc00 wrote: post #54

I'm at the point of wishing for the Rust experiment in the Linux kernel to be over. It's become an over-dramatic culture clash of a distraction, taking away from the valuable time that the already over-burdened kernel developers have available. Combine that with the veiled threats and passive aggressive tone of the email and it is all a turn-off. Let the Rust folks go off and do their own kernel project(s). If they c…

I don't think this would go well for Linux. The companies actually paying for the kernel development want Rust. That's a matter of fact. Just see who's sponsoring the Linux Foundation, and check what they said elsewhere about their long term commitment to Rust. The main sponsors would likely just fork Linux should Rust be removed again. Than Linux would be left with "community contributions" and the trademarks, but a…

And just how much of the Linux Foundation budget goes to supporting kernel development? What percentage of core kernel developers are paid from the Foundation? As long as Linus is happy and productive, I suspect nothing much will change.
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