By the time Rust is welcome in the Linux kernel, projects like Redox will be full fledged competitors. I'd bet Hector would be welcomed there.
Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
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Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#312The 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…
Last year, Linus approached the topic of Rust in the kernel as if it were two opposite communities that were each passionate about their cause:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/torvalds_talks_rust_i...
And his viewpoint at the time seemed fairly agnostic - he enjoyed the passion on both sides but said nothing about what his thoughts were. This leads me to believe that he hasn't spent the time to think about the important issues on either side and make a decision (the failure of leadership mentioned in the parent comment).
Personally, I'm surprised Linus hasn't gone 100% in on Rust as he is normally very forward-thinking, so perhaps that has added to the frustration from so many kernel developers like Hector.
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just really, really dumb to both a) have rust drivers in the kernel and b) not merge this patch. It's just obviously stupid. If you start with the assumption of a), there are no valid technical challenges to merging it. It's just better for everyone. Before Hellwig put his foot down as "not merging because rust sucks", he made a series of technical arguments against the patch, which were all transparently bullsh…
> Before Hellwig put his foot down as "not merging because rust sucks" He didn't say this at all. He explicitly and repeatedly said he has no problems with Rust as a language. And you can't just assert "there are no valid technical reasons". Just because you don't agree with the objections, or even think they're dumb, doesn't mean you can just dismiss them and start ascribing bad faith motives.
It's pretty clear that the battle over rust is a power struggle. You can't take any of it at face value
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just really, really dumb to both a) have rust drivers in the kernel and b) not merge this patch. It's just obviously stupid. If you start with the assumption of a), there are no valid technical challenges to merging it. It's just better for everyone. Before Hellwig put his foot down as "not merging because rust sucks", he made a series of technical arguments against the patch, which were all transparently bullsh…
> Before Hellwig put his foot down as "not merging because rust sucks" He didn't say this at all. He explicitly and repeatedly said he has no problems with Rust as a language. And you can't just assert "there are no valid technical reasons". Just because you don't agree with the objections, or even think they're dumb, doesn't mean you can just dismiss them and start ascribing bad faith motives.
He literally called "Rust" a "cancer".
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#315The 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…
> Arguably his reprimand of Martin is a clear signal that he will never show Rust any favor That doesn't really have anything to do with Rust; but with Hector's behaviour. Threatening a social media campaign to out people is completely toxic behaviour. This is a long-term contributor who is perhaps a bit abrasive, not Jimmy fucking Saville. Other than that, it's not a binary yes/no question; no one is really against…
One lesson I feel we can all learn from this is that social media really should not be used for self-therapy.
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just really, really dumb to both a) have rust drivers in the kernel and b) not merge this patch. It's just obviously stupid. If you start with the assumption of a), there are no valid technical challenges to merging it. It's just better for everyone. Before Hellwig put his foot down as "not merging because rust sucks", he made a series of technical arguments against the patch, which were all transparently bullsh…
> Before Hellwig put his foot down as "not merging because rust sucks" He didn't say this at all. He explicitly and repeatedly said he has no problems with Rust as a language. And you can't just assert "there are no valid technical reasons". Just because you don't agree with the objections, or even think they're dumb, doesn't mean you can just dismiss them and start ascribing bad faith motives.
> He didn't say this at all.
Okay, sorry. He just said there should be no rust in the kernel.
You can ascribe bad faith motivations when someone presents technical objections that are already fully answered in the patch that was submitted, and when this is pointed out, they admit that, but don't retract their objections.
The original objections are specifically not a case of differing values or design ideas. They are nonsensical, the equivalent of 1 = 2.
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#317Marcan 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…
Besides the current drama, I'm glad someone of his stature agrees with and can call out the horrible processes and tooling involved in the kernel. Using email and a pile of hacks to mess around with patches just sounds nuts and makes it so much harder to understand or contribute. I don't think decentralized necessitates such a terrible workflow - you can run a local website with a distributed DB, distributed git forg…
I don’t think there is enough demonstrable benefit to sacrifice the ubiquity and flexibility of email for a newer solution, especially for existing maintainers who are probably very comfortable with the current workflow.
Harder to understand and contribute is a bad, but unless there is a proposal for a similarly flexible system that has minimal downsides and massive advantages, the preference of existing maintainers should dominate over potential future contributors. Especially factoring in how expensive of a migration it would be.
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#318The 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…
Rust is bad news for Linux. No because its Rust, but because it's a bad idea to use more than one single language across the entire code base. I also am surprised that Linus has not ended this folly. If Rust wants a Linux kernel it should make one.
Do you feel the same about Make, Device Tree, KConfig, Python, the myriad of machine-specific assembly, POSIX shell, Perl, and every other non-C language currently in the code base?
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, perhaps a C-only Linux would do that and die, and perhaps it would continue its customization of C flavor and runtime it uses (e.g., the various static and dynamic memory limitations and checkers) and closes the gap with Rust to a point where the incremental benefit of using it is not significant enough that it makes a Rust based competitor an inevitability. We may already be beyond that point, even.
The changes required to bring C to a Rust level of safety would make it an entirely different language, even when restricted to the kernel's domain. Also, if you're already doing codebase-specific patches to the language itself, many of the arguments around codebase portability that justify the use of C fall apart. Aside from that, there are other benefits to Rust than safety: it's better at modelling data and states…
> The changes required to bring C to a Rust level of safety
cough* Cargo cough* /s
You cannot have safety or security when you download your code from the internet and this code is a moving target.
Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Arguably his reprimand of Martin is a clear signal that he will never show Rust any favor His reprimand is a clear signal that he won't tolerate brigading. Marcan was making a pretty blatant attempt at using social pressure to influence decisions.
I honestly don't understand what the difference is between "brigading" and "complaining about a thing on mastodon". It's not uncommon to express frustration about something/someone associated with the kernel development process, what makes this particular instance "brigading"?
The difference is between posting "ugh, having a hard time with someone on a project, they're blocking this merge and I don't think it's for a good reason" and literally starting your post with "Behold," linking directly to a mailing list post, and misrepresenting the other person's objections as "sabotage."