Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by thayne » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:24 AM UTC

finnthehuman wrote: post #275

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 always thought it was a pretty blatant "vibe check" to filter out people who are so uncomfortable with software that they can't customize their environment to create an email workflow that works for them.

I've contributed to a couple of projects that use email based workflows. I can customize my environment, but it takes a lot of time, and I would rather do something else than figure out how to filter the firehose of a mailing list to the few emails I actually care about, or learn how to use a new email client that is slightly better and handling patches.

The first few times, it took me longer to figure out how to send a patch than it did to fix the bug I was writing a patch for.

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

#562

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:26 AM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #18

Tomte wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has at least said this to Martin: "How about you accept the fact that maybe the problem is you." ( https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/CAHk-=wi=ZmP2=TmHsFSU... ) I wouldn‘t expect a grand Rust announcement anytime soon, above what has already been said. Rust in the kernel seems to be fine, but it will have to adapt to longstanding kernel processes. And if it means there won‘t be Rust in some maintainers‘ subsys…

I've conversed with marcan a few times (on completely unrelated and inconsequential things). As far as I know he's a decent man. That said, I'm going to agree with Linus there: Cancel culture ("social media brigading") isn't the solution.

[deleted]

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

#563

Post by dcsommer » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:26 AM UTC

rednafi wrote: post #465

There will be a similar drama when Zig reaches 1.0. There will be a bunch of Ziggers trying to get it into the kernal. The Rust fad is already slowing down. Maybe it's a good idea to wait 10-15 years before trying to rewrite the universe in a "memory safe" language and pushing that upstream.

Zig brings developer velocity benefits over C, but developer velocity is not the reason R4L exists. Until Zig has an easily segmented part that is memory safe, there is no demand for its potential benefits in Linux. Memory safety is the only reason a new language was considered within Linux.

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

#564

Post by ranguna » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:39 AM UTC

vednig wrote: post #534

Linux is one of the most complicated OS in the history of OS and both of them understand this in someway or the other, it's still not cracked enough market share to dominate the personal computer market even in 2025, but is already on millions of other devices except PCs and a small change in decision like r4l brings the whole perspective into matter, after the fact that rust is highly compute intensive language and…

> the fact that rust is highly compute intensive language

care to elaborate on that?

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

#565

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:45 AM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #195

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…

> 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…

> Other than that, it's not a binary yes/no question; no one is really against some Rust in some parts of the kernel, but which parts? How? Where? That's the big disagreement. Linus has always been fairly hands-off on these types of disagreements.

Some Kernel maintainers are absolutely against Rust anywhere in the kernel tree [0]:

> 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.

This is from Christoph Hellwig, the DMA maintainer. And is in fact what started the thread that led to Hector Martin quitting Linux. You can see other comments by Hellwig in that thread as well, he is extremely explicit - any Rust anywhere in the kernel is a big problem, and even if he can't stop it everywhere, he will do what he can to make it harder to use Rust by blocking it from the pieces he maintains.

[0] https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250131075751.GA1672...

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

#566

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:50 AM UTC

CountHackulus wrote: post #560

hajile wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What happens when Linus retires (or god forbid dies)? He can't defuse those situations forever, there needs to be some sort of process.

Someone will have to take over Linus' role. There's no way that kernel development can work without a person in charge, at least not in anyway that is remotely similar to today.

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

#567

Post by fud101 » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:58 AM UTC

mperham wrote: post #311

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. https://www.redox-os.org

because that's what the world needs, an obscure half assed implementation of unix? why not innovate and come up with a new paradigm instead. No one is asking for this.

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

#568

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:59 AM UTC

IncreasePosts wrote: post #440

cycomanic wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wouldn't call being vocally against something "sabotage". Would it be reasonable if that person said anyone trying to get rust integrated is sabotaging the Linux kernel?

You're conflating two things. The fact that he voices his belief that Rust is harmful for kernel development is fair.

The fact that he is using his powers as maintainer of the DMA module to prevent Rust code from being added, with the explicit goal of making it harder to develop Rust drivers so that maybe the Rust-for-Linux project might get abandoned is an explicit act of sabotage against the R4L project (no one is saying he is sabotaging the Linux project itself).

In contrast, even accepting the "two languages bad" perspective, you can't call the R4L project "sabotage" in the same way, because they are clearly not intending to prevent or break anything in the Linux kernel, even if you think they will end up doing so as this maintainer does.

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

#569

Post by johnny22 » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 7:01 AM UTC

pverghese wrote: post #501

iknowstuff wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one is really against some Rust in some parts of the kernel Dude, this was literally caused by a stubborn maintainer, Hellwig, saying he wants NO second language in the kernel at all, and his explicit vow to do anything he can to stop it.

And there is no issue with that. What's this pervasive need to spread Rust to every part of the software space. It's just becoming a little too pushy and desperate

c'mon.. please know about the issue at all to some level before commenting.

The rust for linux project exists because Linus approved it. It's that simple. Linus thinks it a good idea to at least try Rust in the kernel. If he didn't, then none of this would be happening.

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

#570

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 7:03 AM UTC

ww520 wrote: post #492

loeg wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Hellwig also Nack'd the patch that added the wrapper to an independent library outside of the core C DMA directory.

Why would he do that? He has no control over an independent library outside of C DMA? I thought he said he's fine with any drivers written in Rust. Just that the maintenance of such including any wrapper cannot fall into C DMA's lap.

No, he said very explicitly that he is against any Rust code in Linux whatsoever. He doesn't have any beef with Rust, the same would be true for him if people tried to add C++ or Pascal or Ada or any other kind of drivers or infra in Linux: he believes that the project will be much harder to maintain if it's not 100% pure C (and assembly).

Here is a link to this explicit claim: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250131075751.GA1672...