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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

#811

Post by cutemonster »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #740
bonzini wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, dropping 17000 lines of code is probably not the best way to solicit technical discussions ( https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240826103728.3378-1-greg@enje... is the patch set in question)

17KLoC? Maybe he should consider they’re probably still reviewing it through bloody eyes. But seriously I wouldn’t want to review that much code.

I'd get mildly angry if someone sent a giant patch without having discussed with me first. (Not working with any kernel things) But a quicker "no, don't have time, probably never will" response would have been nice I guess?

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

#812

Post by veidr »

intelfx wrote: post #700
adrian_b wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works only if you trust the Rust people to do their job. Obviously the maintainer does not trust the Rust people, but they also did nothing to gain his trust, but the opposite. Just saying "Trust me, or else I will shame you" is not a viable strategy. The default position of any code maintainer who sees some people coming and saying that they would maintain from now on some parts of the code and that there shoul…

Saying "I do not trust you, so I'm going to stonewall your entire work with which you could have built that trust" is not viable either. Besides, none of this was said. Hellwig did not say "I do not trust you enough". He said "you are cancer, go away". First is harsh, but at least somewhat reasonable (in the sense that it _can be reasoned with_); second is not reasonable at all. Your interpretation is excessively cha…

Why do you guys keep saying he said this?? He did not say that, and you (and everybody else) can see it for yourselves:

> If you want to make Linux impossible to maintain due to a cross-language codebase do that in your driver so that you have to do it instead of spreading this cancer to core subsystems. (where this cancer explicitly is a cross-language codebase and not rust itself, just to escape the flameware brigade).

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

That's totally, utterly different than your characterization of it.

(So many other people were also falsely claiming that he said it like that, I initially assumed it was true, so I'm a little irritated.)

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

#813

Post by solarkraft »

db48x wrote: post #600
thayne wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sen…

But you only have to figure that out once. Amortized over many contributions the cost is essentially nothing.

But the initial cost is what determines whether the first patch will ever be sent, so the amortization may never happen.

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

#815

Post by mperham »

fud101 wrote: post #567
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.

It sounds like you don’t know anything about Redox.

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

#816

Post by DrillShopper »

gcr wrote: post #475
apatheticonion wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. Dumb question but why doesn't Linux aim for a stable driver ABI? Does it impede delivery speed? I think nvidia uses out-of-tree drivers that are dynamically loaded - does that mean that nvidia drivers are tied to specific kernel versions?

nvidia uses "DKMS" to rebuild itself for each running kernel. Closed source modules like nvidia frequently have a kernel-independent proprietary piece and a kernel-specific (open source) ABI piece. Whenever you upgrade your kernel, DKMS will re-build the kernel-specific shim and re-link the proprietary blob. The result is a .ko tailor made for your running kernel, even though most of the code is in a kernel-independe…

It looks like nVidia is open to moving their open driver (which requires a card that as a GSP) upstream [1] but with Rust being killed from the Linux kernel that's probably dead.

[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Exploring-Upstream-KMD

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

#817

Post by asadalt »

sesm wrote: post #730
jart wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not the top comment? I was scratching my head wondering until I found your links. So the smackdown from Linus is what motivated it. Honestly though if you read the email Linus is replying to, it was deserved. To be fair, Hector Martin may be one of the smartest hackers alive today. His fame goes way back to hacking the Playstation 3 with geohot and Hector has even found security vulnerabilities in Apple S…

> It seems like he wrote his Apple GPU driver in Rust and he needed Rust DMA support in the kernel. Did he really NEED it? Why he couldn't use the C API?

that’s exactly my question. why can’t he depend on C API and just consider it is memory safe and all.

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

#818

Post by okanat »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #585
jabwd wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me it looks like that for Linux big part of R4L experiment is to specifically understand whether Rust people can convince key stakeholders that R4L is good idea and get their buy-in and that is why he doesn't attempt to force it. This is the entire point. This has been DONE. First its "lets see if you can build a good driver", now its "ew rust". The maintainer of the DMA subsystem is showing how they're actively…

No, it is not the entire point. No one is really doubting whether you can write a driver in Rust, C++ or Swift. The whole experiment is whether you can slowly move in to existing mature kernel subsystems without being too disruptive.

If the minority maintainers scream every time they see other languages due to their insecurities, technical inability and stubbornness, and their overreactions get a pass, it is not the fault of Rust, C++ or Swift. The source of the disturbance is not the people who are making an effort to cause as little disturbance.

Blatant NIMBYism is the problem here and you cannot reduce it by accepting everything.

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

#819

Post by patrick451 »

tw1984 wrote: post #637
quelsolaar wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The policy of "No C++, because I don't want to deal with C++ people", should be extended to the Rust community. Whatever you think of the merits of the Rust language, the drama, the lecturing and the general superiority complex of the Rust community is quite off putting, at least to C developers.

> at least to C developers. so it is not about technical merits, but just some language religious thing? nice.

The rust doesn't write itself.

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

#820

Post by baq »

nottorp wrote: post #228
lelanthran wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

any community can be called that if you squint hard enough and especially if you ignore the silent, get-the-job-done-and-go-home members of it and only listen to evangelists.
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