431–440 of 1001 posts
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…
I've been saying this for years now: the rust4linux folks are putting so much effort into trying to upstream their work, seems like they should instead put that effort into maintaining a fork. Arguably it would be less hours spent porting than arguing with humans. Certainly more pleasant! Then one of two things will happen: * Rust will prove its worth and their fork will be the better operating system. Distros will s…
I think you're discounting the very real damage that would be done by Linux a project controlled by Linus and a community being replaced by Linux a project controlled by Google/Samsung/Redhat/Microsoft. I'm afraid that this is what is going to happen with the Linus tree effectively rejecting rust drivers by subjecting anyone attempting to upstream rust code to persistent bullying, but I don't want it to happen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People get old and stop caring. Linus is still doing amazing. But I agree he should have just said no to Rust and move on.
Why? Was it not worth seeing where it would go, or how many would be interested? Is it possible he believed the tides could turn that way?
I've been saying this for years now: the rust4linux folks are putting so much effort into trying to upstream their work, seems like they should instead put that effort into maintaining a fork. Arguably it would be less hours spent porting than arguing with humans. Certainly more pleasant! Then one of two things will happen: * Rust will prove its worth and their fork will be the better operating system. Distros will s…
The Linux kernel is part of so many different things, projects, products, companies, etc. A change can really duck things up.
Being conservative, and slow, in adopting new things is good for the main line.
You have idealistic developers who have seen a way to do something better, that is great. I know the feeling.
I have never done anything with the Linux kernel, but I have worked on some large legacy codebases. and it is to come in, look around, and just go "Gosh, this here is just slow, I'll just fix this". and it will be a good solution right there, but it might be suboptimal overall.
Chances are really good that you dont understand the entire picture when you "fix something", and someone who does, may not like the change. and even if the technical solution is clearly better from one angle.
I am glad I will never be involved in blessing or passing on 1.000.000 different changes being proposed as improvements to Linux every week.
The rust folks should make a Linux compatible kernel and distros that include a stripped down Linux kernel as a compatibility layer for legacy software.
There's this... (not quite what you wanted) https://www.redox-os.org/
I've been saying this for years now: the rust4linux folks are putting so much effort into trying to upstream their work, seems like they should instead put that effort into maintaining a fork. Arguably it would be less hours spent porting than arguing with humans. Certainly more pleasant! Then one of two things will happen: * Rust will prove its worth and their fork will be the better operating system. Distros will s…
I think you're discounting the very real damage that would be done by Linux a project controlled by Linus and a community being replaced by Linux a project controlled by Google/Samsung/Redhat/Microsoft. I'm afraid that this is what is going to happen with the Linus tree effectively rejecting rust drivers by subjecting anyone attempting to upstream rust code to persistent bullying, but I don't want it to happen.
(Brackets added for clarity)
Isn't the current Linux already Linus + communities + companies?
More to the point, any two such projects would quickly diverge. Once a particular piece of Linux is reimplemented in Rust, if the C version adds a feature it is no longer as simple as applying a patch to keep in sync.
I've been saying this for years now: the rust4linux folks are putting so much effort into trying to upstream their work, seems like they should instead put that effort into maintaining a fork. Arguably it would be less hours spent porting than arguing with humans. Certainly more pleasant! Then one of two things will happen: * Rust will prove its worth and their fork will be the better operating system. Distros will s…
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where? Because "keep the wrappers in your code" and "do that in your driver so that you have to do it instead of spreading this" doesn't sound like that.
This [0] seems to be the closest to your parent's statement: > The common ground is that I have absolutely no interest in helping to spread a multi-language code base. I absolutely support using Rust in new codebase, but I do not at all in Linux. [0] https://lwn.net/ml/all/20250204052916.GA28741@lst.de/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where? Because "keep the wrappers in your code" and "do that in your driver so that you have to do it instead of spreading this" doesn't sound like that.
He said explicitely: >Every additional bit that 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 completely breaks this. You might not like my answer, but I will do everything I can do to stop this. I think that clearly means he is out to sabotage…