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

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

#841

Post by steveklabnik » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:16 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #802

e40 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 this is an important data point, too: Gunthorpe [nvidia]: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250130154646.GA2298... Basically, there is concern that even with a declaration that Rust-for-Linux devs will maintain this (and potentially every other) cross-language API translation layer file, the demarcation point between C and Rust isn't sufficient, and is causing C developers lag or headaches by having PR…

Greg replied and explained that this is a mischaracterization https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2025013030-gummy-cosm...

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

#842

Post by _ph_ » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #693

jack_pp wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you make a living writing zero day exploits?

Keep believing that Rust magically prevents you from getting owned when you fuck up.

That is a fallacy. No one has claimed that Rust magically prevents you from getting owned. Quite to the contrary: there is no magic in preventing most, if not all memory handling errors. Which are the most common reason for security problems. Removing one category of errors entirely would free a lot of resources to deal with the remaining ones.

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

#843

Post by tarruda » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

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…

> And it's quite out of character for Linus not to have a blazingly clear opinion. (We all know his stance on C++, for instance.)

People change. As you get older, you might find you no longer care that much about subjects you previously had very strong opinions about

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

#844

Post by steveklabnik » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

Eggpants wrote: post #798

imtringued wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true. I think the C guys told themselves that writing safe C code is just a matter of skill, but data shows that the amount of skill necessary to avoid writing unsafe C just isn't there. The average C developer isn't as competent as they claim. You can lie to yourself and say that the same security problems exist in other languages, but that isn't true. When I check the vulnerabilities marked as…

Rust is sadly more about marketing than actually being popular or safe. That stackoverflow survey rust folks so proudly crow about shows it’s the #1 ‘admired’ language, well #2 was closure and Zig over the years which clearly shows the value of the survey. Just marketing slop. The rust produces safe code claim is also marketing garbage. The rust standard library has over 7.5k (of 35k) unsafe functions in it. The core…

Google has published direct evidence of Rust improving memory safety in practice: https://security.googleblog.com/2022/12/memory-safe-language...

> To date, there have been zero memory safety vulnerabilities discovered in Android’s Rust code.

That was 2022. I am aware of at least one security bug in their Rust code, but it wasn't a memory safety issue. I'll be interested to see what they say when they post updated numbers.

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

#845

Post by steveklabnik » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #671

FullGarden_S wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? This was never about the languages primarily though. The C programmers here would react the same way towards any other language, be it Zig or Swift, its not Rust specific. They just don't want to partake the additional headache they'll have to deal with to for making the Linux kernel more accessible to languages other than C. Despite than, Rust devs kept on pushing it after all that was clearly stated, just to ma…

I somewhat disagree on the "you can't escape unsafe" part. It's true for a C+Rust project, but the idea that you need an unsafe language for low level hardware access is plain wrong. That's a "C-ism". Something that might seem true in a universe where most low level work is done in C, but wouldn't be true in a universe where C doesn't exist at all.

At work, we have an OS written entirely in Rust. You still need unsafe to make it work. Not much (3%) but it's nonzero.

The hardware is outside of Rust's safety guarantees. This is truly a fundamental issue.

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

#846

Post by Cumpiler69 » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:25 PM UTC

wolvesechoes wrote: post #149

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but comes of as looking for drama and virtue signalling oftentimes It's easier to name the major Linux FOSS projects that DON'T have drama and virtue signaling than the ones with. If you read the Github comments on System-D, GNOME, etc, it's like watching children bickering on Sega VS Nintendo. Turns out FOSS devs are humas just like everybody else and suffer from the same flaws.

"Turns out FOSS devs are humas just like everybody else and suffer from the same flaws." Hell no. FOSS communities, as other spaces created by permanently online individuals, definitely have higher-than-average number of mentally unhinged snowflakes.

[dead]

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

#847

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:26 PM UTC

pornel wrote: post #742

hinkley wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wait long enough a Rust competitor will gain traction. And honestly I wonder if that might not be for the best. How many of rust’s features have only been tried a couple of times?

The Rust project started 15 years ago, and spent a decade growing userbase, library ecosystem, and proving that it's a serious language that's here to stay (which some C maintainers still don't believe). We don't have a Rust-killer language yet. The closest one is SafeC++ (Circle), but it's still a single-dev proof of concept, and the C++ leadership firmly rejected it. Zig went in a different direction. Swift is addi…

> We don't have a Rust-killer language yet.

We don't even have a C++ killer language yet. These things move very slowly.

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

#848

Post by eqvinox » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

eqvinox wrote: post #838

neobrain wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't say anything about moderator action for me. He closed the account himself: > I actually wasn't sure if I wanted to delete my Mastodon entirely or not, but as I intended to fill in my password for confirmation and decide whether to click the button, my password manager auto-submitted the form for me. Call it fate, I guess. I mostly don't regret it. Maybe I'll be back some day, maybe not. https://old.reddit.…

This is what I got when I posted my comment: https://imgur.com/a/zlNmWtF (TZ is UTC+1) It is gone now and gives a generic "nothing here"; I have no idea whether the "suspended by moderator" display was some kind of bug, transient state, or whether he's just lying, or both things are true and he just deleted his account after it was suspended. (Well, his Reddit post doesn't claim his Mastodon account didn't get suspen…

Actually… I'm really not a fan of how Mastodon handles account deletion. I've interacted with him there about a week ago, and all of his posts are now missing from those threads. I guess it makes sense from a "be able to change your ways and not be stuck with ancient bad things you did" perspective, and there's a right to deletion/"be forgotten" in some legal frameworks, but this hinders necessary community processes. At least the LKML mails are permanent…

I would've liked to link a post or two of his to show just how little flexibility and tolerance there was from his end regarding his social interactions, even when being questioned about them in an outside context and in a reasonably neutral manner. Ohwell…

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

#849

Post by yencabulator » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #802

e40 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 this is an important data point, too: Gunthorpe [nvidia]: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250130154646.GA2298... Basically, there is concern that even with a declaration that Rust-for-Linux devs will maintain this (and potentially every other) cross-language API translation layer file, the demarcation point between C and Rust isn't sufficient, and is causing C developers lag or headaches by having PR…

I'm not sure this is fundamentally different from e.g. a complex filesystem implementation relying on a specific MM or VFS or whatever API, and a "C developer" wanting to change that API. Just because the callers are in C doesn't necessarily make the global change easy.

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

#850

Post by _ph_ » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

19h wrote: post #165

The frustration seems justified. Spending significant time adapting core kernel code or developing a safe Rust abstraction for DMA, only to be summarily shut down by a single gatekeeper who cites "not wanting multiple languages" is demotivating. It's especially incongruent given that others have championed Rust in the kernel, and Linux has begun hosting Rust modules. If the project leadership — i.e. Linus — truly wan…

I think initially Linus stance of encouraging Rust drivers as an experiment to see how they turn out was a right decisions. There should be some experience before doing long term commitments to a new technology.

But since then a lot of experience was made and I got the notion that the Rust drivers were quite a success.

And now we are at a point where proceeding further does need a decision by Linus, especially as one of the kernel maintainers is actively blocking further work.