Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

lkml.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 1001 posts

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#221

Post by gpm »

chippiewill wrote: post #41
Havoc wrote: post #12

From what I can piece together it seems Hector is upset about someone ("Hellwig"?) doing something that was seen as intentionally sabotaging the rust efforts. Hector posted about it on socials. Linus came down on Hector for leveraging socials to fight kernel disputes. Hector quits. No doubt that is a flawed summary so feel free to correct

No that's 100% accurate. Marcan is probably a little acutely upset not just because he was told off, but also because Linus hasn't waded into the actual issue at hand (which he needs to, not even Greg K-h can answer it). But that issue is less urgent and it's probably reasonable for Linus to: a) Mull it over before making a rash decision b) let tempers calm. I would guess Linus will wait til Monday and is probably al…

I couldn't speak to off-list chats, but this has been going on for awhile.

The statement that they were going to maintain this without the support of the DMA maintainer was made 22 days ago [1]. That statement was rejected 11 days ago [2]. Linus was explicitly asked to intervene 10 days ago [3]. (Too complete the timeline Hector Martin first got involved 4 days ago, Linus intervened about that yesterday).

I don't know why you think Linus will suddenly choose to address this Monday.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/Z4kG5AcVeQKegLnb@poll...

[2] https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250128092334.GA2854...

[3] https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/Z5qeoqRZKjiR1YAD@poll...

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#222

Post by zamalek »

You know, Redox (as the "most serious" Rust kernel I can think of) could probably do with non-trivial drivers. It would be unfortunate for aspiring or even seasoned kernel developers to step away from the practice entirely, simply because R4L fails to launch.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#224

Post by zamadatix »

mplewis9z wrote: post #10

Marcan certainly can be abrasive (I mean lol, so can Linus), but all the things he points out in the message below are 100% valid - I highly recommend for anyone here to try to contribute something even very small and logical to the Linux kernel or git (which use similar processes), it’s an eye-opening experience that’s incredibly unapproachable, frustrating, and demoralizing. https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2…

I agree contributing code to the kernel is by no means as approachable or easy going but it's not self-evident that alone is supposed to be the sign of bad things™ unlike more specific examples boiling up to be part of that picture. Are there things and ways I think it could be improved? For sure! I just don't necessarily think they imply the resulting process would be quick and painless.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#225

Post by pipes »

artyom wrote: post #201
gary_0 wrote: post #27

The Rust drama is an uncommon failure of leadership for Torvalds. Instead of decisively saying "no, never" or "yes, make it so," he has consistently equivocated on the Rust issue. Given the crisis of confidence among a sizeable (and very vocal) contingent of the Linux community, that decision has backfired horribly. And it's quite out of character for Linus not to have a blazingly clear opinion. (We all know his stan…

> an uncommon failure of leadership for Torvalds Exactly the point. IMHO the one and only thing that made Linux successful as a project is Linus' strong leadership - which has been criticized ad-nauseam over the years; yet it's the only thing that yields results. So in the specific instances (like this one) where he's not decisively, unequivocally, and even harshly saying "yes" or "no" to something, the community sho…

[flagged]

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#226

Post by snvzz »

plagiarist wrote: post #154
pjmlp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have, https://www.redox-os.org/ https://tockos.org/ Also note that many of Rust 4 Linux contributors are Microsoft and Google employees that would like to upstream their changes, they already have plenty Rust on their own Linux derived systems.

Redox looks great. Device drivers should be in userspace, though I think that's far easier said than done with everything being on shared busses. A kernel cannot (safely) just simply check permissions for accessing a device and route the messages.

IOMMUs do help.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#227

Post by zamalek »

coldtea wrote: post #3

Martin has worked hard on Asahi, but comes of as looking for drama and virtue signalling oftentimes. I'd give this to Linus.

> Martin has worked hard on Asahi, but comes of as looking for drama and virtue signalling oftentimes.

Aren't these diametrically opposed? Virtue signaling is loudly claiming to have some virtue in the absence of that virtue. Hector has receipts, in the form of commits, as proof.

Virtue signaling would be me appearing on the mailing list and spouting my beliefs.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#228

Post by nottorp »

lelanthran wrote: post #101
markus_zhang wrote: post #81

I have a question. Instead of fighting an uphill war in the Linux kernel community, why don't Rush developers just make a new kernel or fork their own? Sure it's going to take years, but at least they don't have to suffer the mental outrages from time to time and can do whatever they want? I mean I'd do it if that's what I want. P.S I don't have skin and skill for the kernel game. I'm just a curious bystander.

> I have a question. Instead of fighting an uphill war in the Linux kernel community, why don't Rush developers just make a new kernel or fork their own? Because their primary goal is to widen the community and reach of Rust, with "preventing memory error class bugs in the kernel" a secondary objective. After all, the Rust additions, if properly designed, can be maintained in an out-of-tree fork that tracks the main…

So they're ... a religion?

No idea what the particular bit of drama discussed here is about, but that's my impression of the Rust "community".

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#229

Post by arp242 »

dralley wrote: post #117
ndiddy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tweet he got called out for on the thread was "Thinking of literally starting a Linux maintainer hall of shame. Not for public consumption, but to help new kernel contributors know what to expect. Every experienced kernel submitter has this in their head, maybe it should be finally written down."

The person who called him out for that made some testy social media comments of her own this morning. Personally, seeing > Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic, [...] written unironically, on social media, immediately after that person wrote @marcan > and if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuc…

> and if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuck off

Certainly in context, this seems fairly reasonable: https://chaos.social/@sima/113961283260455876

Yeah this isn't about "being civil" or "friendly" and even less about "don't call out". This is about calling out in an ineffective and imprecise way, so that the people actually trying to change things are busy patching up your collateral damage instead of implementing real changes, while all you've achieved is airing your frustration for internet drama points.

When you're that harmful with your calling out, eventually I'm going to be fed up, and you get a live round shot across your bow.

And if that then causes you to ragequit, because you can't actually deal with the heat you've been dishing out coming back around the corner: fuck off.

Or as Dave Airlie put it upthread in this conversation: "Being toxic on the right side of an argument is still toxic, [...]"

So please do call out broken things, do change things, I've been doing it for well over a decade in the linux kernel. But do it in a way that you're not just becoming part of the problem and making it bigger.

---

And this is not the first time something like this has happened with Marcan. He may be tired of the Linux devs, but many of them are also tired with him (including some of the people working on Rust, it seems).

And this is part of a conversation on what went wrong here, not an attempt to rally the troops. You really can't compare it to Marcan's stuff. This kind of (selective) demand for absolute perfection is really not great.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#230

Post by bigstrat2003 »

ziddoap wrote: post #66
bakugo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Starting to think it's not just a coincidence. Is your theory that rust makes people dramatic? Or that dramatic people like rust? What other options are there, if not coincidence?

I'm inclined towards the second explanation. But whatever the case may be, there really is an unusually high amount of drama in the Rust community. Maybe Rust just attracts really passionate nerds with a lack of social skills, IDK. But there's something going on there.
Post reply on HN