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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

#371
post #215
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how forkable is the whole thing? I mean, it is several decades of code but...

It's not.

its totally forkable. in fact its totally possible to write a 99% workalike.

the issue here is whether or not the broader community would ever seriously consider using an alternative, and whether contributors, particular commercial ones writing drivers for products, would ever agree to maintain two versions.

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

#372

I get this impression that the Rust people think they are a stage where Rust is a viral phenom but it's really not. Nevertheless, they are behaving like its viral and trying to force it down everybody's throats, even though I never heard of some software package or system that was built natively in rust that truly went viral. The other day I tried to install a python package and - big surprise - it REQUIRED me to ins…

Where are you seeing these "we're viral" statements?

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

#373
post #334
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…

Maybe it's because of Linus' age or because the players involved are bigger than many past issues, but the way I see it, both decisions are really costly: - Endorse Rust with little reserve and over half of the C++ devs will feel betrayed and quit supporting the Linux project. They've been working on C++ for Decades and things mostly worked, so they won't pivot for a new language and way of developing for something t…

> over half of the C++ devs will feel betrayed and quit supporting the Linux project. They've been working on C++ for Decades and things mostly worked, so they won't pivot for a new language and way of developing for something that exists for less than 30 years.

You mean C? C++ has been dead and buried for years and there are 0 kernel devs thinking that C++ will ever be allowed in (that idea was killed in the 00s if I recall correctly).

I don't think the situation is quite as extreme as you're making it out. For example, the employers of Linux kernel devs are getting pressure to use Rust because of the push from within & without the industry. I think push comes to shove, most people have a stronger preference for their paycheck than for the language they work in.

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

#375
post #305
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEC Alpha support is somehow still in the mainline Linux kernel...

Slowly getting removed: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/e8612e21-4ea4-4e6f-8c73-9fbee11...

To be fair, anything that does not support BWX is really painful to deal with.

Take, for example, an 8-bit/byte store. Without BWX the sequence would be something like:

        bic     a0, #3, t1
        and     a0, #3, t4
        ldl     t2, (t1)
        insbl   a1, t4, t3
        mskbl   t2, t4, t2
        bis     t2, t3, t2
        stl     t2, (t1)
        ret     zero, (ra)
But with BWX, it becomes:

        stb     a1, 0(a0)
        ret     zero, (ra)

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm usually very critical of how Torvolds treats the people around him and the culture he maintains but this is a rare case when I'm not really against Torvalds on this. I've had to remove Hector's postings from my feeds because he just constantly bitches and complains about pretty much everything. He's capable, smart, and is doing more than anybody ever will for Apple hardware. But he desperately needs to Stop Posti…

[flagged]

This is the logic that generates generic corporate PR speak and a fear of being honest in organizational communication. It's not a more 'adult' world, it's just heavily sanitized. Calling something "a cancer in x" is a common analogy, we know what they mean.

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

#377
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm usually very critical of how Torvolds treats the people around him and the culture he maintains but this is a rare case when I'm not really against Torvalds on this. I've had to remove Hector's postings from my feeds because he just constantly bitches and complains about pretty much everything. He's capable, smart, and is doing more than anybody ever will for Apple hardware. But he desperately needs to Stop Posti…

I feel the exact same. Marcan has done amazing work, and his random blog entries etc have saved me hours of debugging time in the past. But jeez, it is really painful to see him say absolute nonsense like "If shaming on social media does not work, then tell me what does, because I'm out of ideas." - he has gotta Stop Posting and keep those kinds of thoughts away from his keyboard.

If Linus thinks that the social media angle is wrong, he should defuse situations before they become explosive because even if one of the devs didn't bring up the drama, there are dozens of news companies that would have printed up articles the second they found the discussion anyway.

Linus should have stepped in long before a maintainer blew their stack and started throwing out ultimatums. Once that happened, Linus could have still stopped everything with one sentence -- "Let me look into this.", but he did not.

Linus only got an opinion once things blew up on social media which proves that social media works which is the exact opposite of what he says he wants (and will just encourage more of the same).

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

#378
post #284
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. I'm no where near in the loop on this, but that sounds incredibly toxic. Are there some good links to summarize this? EDIT: OK, these are fully enough to allow me to understand the issue. Marcan: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/208e1fc3-cfc…

I think the response from Dr Greg to Linus, https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250207121638.GA7356... adds some interesting insights.

There seems to be some issue with unaccountable maintainers, and that’s a problem for innovation. If you can’t even get to the point of “technical debate” (we aren’t interested, sorry), then what hope innovation?

These are “people problems”, and there are no easy or good answers, but it doesn’t mean we should through our hands up and consider things “unfixable” either.

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

#380
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Okay, sorry. He just said there should be no rust in the kernel. That's also not what he said; it's "no Rust in kernel/dma". He pretty much explicitly said it's okay for drivers to do their thing in Rust, but with their own wrappers. You can consider that dumb, but you can't shorten that to "no Rust in the kernel". And "I replied to your objections, therefore the matter is settled" is arrogant beyond belief. People…

He literally said this:

> Every additional bit that the another language creeps in drastically reduces the maintainability of the kernel as an integrated project. The only reason Linux managed to survive so long is by not having internal boundaries, and adding another language complely breaks this. You might not like my answer, but I will do everything I can do to stop this.

https://lwn.net/ml/all/20250131075751.GA16720@lst.de/

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