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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

#881

Post by pas »

rcxdude wrote: post #39
Dalewyn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed, but where is the 'real' solution? If no-one higher up is going to step in and merge the patches despite the blocking maintainer, how is "the process" going to move R4L forward? (Edit: Ok, reading some other context, it seems like this is indeed what's happening, which does make this reaction a little less justified. I can certainly see why it's no fun to have people in the project saying they will do whatever…

Sometimes there's no win-win-win solution.

I think people who write C should stop unless it's to fix security bugs and should do something else, anything else, maybe even learn about programming. But even with this mindset Linux is a C project and the R4L folks promised to thread the needle, if it cannot be done this time, then it cannot be done this time. They need to wait.

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

#882

Post by TuxSH »

cies wrote: post #670
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…

> As a pilot program, R4L should have graduated or ended a long time ago. Disagree. These things take time. Linus knows that, and as I see it, he's giving it the time it needs. "After years of active development" we've only recently arrived at a point where actual driver development in Rust is possible. > We all know [Linus'] stance on C++ Yes. And looking back I think that was a good stance. C++ is not for kernels:…

> C++ is not for kernels

That's a broad generalization to make.

Nintendo's custom OS (Horizon OS, used on Switch and a previous version on 3DS) is almost fully written in C++, including the entire kernel and all drivers.

I agree with you that C++ has plenty of misfeatures. Fortunately, compiler vendors make it fairly easy to dodge the bad parts of the language.

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

#883

Post by mmooss »

AndyKelley wrote: post #422

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…

Who would use a kernel that is essentially the mainline kernel with more Rust? Would Debian or Red Hat use it? Maybe some very hard-core Rust hobbyists, but otherwise, why use the Rustier kernel?

But if they could demonstrate significant improvements in security and stability, then they would have something to say. Maybe the plan should be to rewrite a component that the mainline maintainers wouldn't agree to - something important with a significant affect on security and stability. Yes, it's a risk, but if their claims for Rust are true, then it shouldn't be a problem. If Rust doesn't offer a major improvement then it isn't worth the effort anyway. Put their money (or time) where their mouth is.

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

#884

Post by int_19h »

pjmlp wrote: post #627
msh wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX would like to disagree with you.

First of all I mentioned most, not all. Second, while OS X, and NeXTSTEP before it, are technically UNIX, they aren't seen as such by either NeXT, nor Apple. The focus of the whole userspace experience is on Objective-C frameworks, nowadays also a mix of Swift and C++. Steve Jobs was famously against UNIX culture, there was even a famous attendance of him at USENIX. NeXTSTEP was based on UNIX, because Steve Job wante…

If macOS isn't see as UNIX by Apple, why does the latter continue to submit it for certification?

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

#885

Post by codr7 »

DaSHacka wrote: post #21
codr7 wrote: post #16

[flagged]

Frankly I immediately knew incidents like these would increase when it was added. Not possible to have rust without the "" community"", it seems.

Obvious from the start for anyone paying attention, take a look at the founder.

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

#886

Post by mmooss »

mmooss wrote: post #390
lll-o-lll wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

People should read it: "... I come at this from the perspective of having worked on Linux since around December of 1991. I first met you and Tove in 1995 at the Free Software Conference at MIT that Stallman sponsored. ... Probably the last technical contribution of my career is leading an initiative to provide the Linux community a generic security modeling architecture. Not to supplant or replace anything currently…

A maintiner's perpsecitive on the above:

https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/20250208204416.GL1130...

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

#887

Post by pornel »

matu3ba wrote: post #792
pornel wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. The type-system analysis of Rust is smart, but not restricted to the language per se, see https://github.com/ityonemo/clr . One merely has to have proper namespacing and necessary type info from generic code to do annotations and solve them. These things are solved in Rust via trait system. Retroactively patching C to have namespaces will not work and same holds for generic…

There was also Cyclone before Rust, and Checked-C in the meantime. The concepts like regions and affine types existed long before Rust, and Rust started out by copying from older languages (http://venge.net/graydon/talks/intro-talk-2.pdf).

It's not enough to have just a proof-of-concept compiler that could match Rust's checks — that's where Rust was 10 years ago. Rust had time to polish its compiler, expand tooling, integrations, platform support, attract contributors, grow userbase, create learning materials, etc. To displace Rust of today you don't need to just match the old starting point, but offer something better by a margin large enough to offset the cost and risk of switching to a less mature language. That's the same problem that Rust is facing when trying to displace even more established C and C++.

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

#888

Post by tacker2000 »

hajile wrote: post #377
xenago wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I dont think Linus gives a damn about any social media drama. Why should he care?

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

#889

Post by tacker2000 »

Philpax wrote: post #104
cataphract wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tired of anaphoras. And he's not just abrasive He's a troublemaker. Seriously, code of conduct violation? It was perfectly clear what Hellwig meant by "cancer".

What is the interpretation of "cancer" in this context that isn't rude, offensive, or hostile to the R4L project?

He wasnt talking about Rust specifically, he was referring to codebases in any other language.

He said: “ And I also do not want another maintainer. 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).”

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

#890

Post by naasking »

adastra22 wrote: post #697
naasking wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5 years later, it's still not there. It was just a one-liner, and I'm not really sure why it never got added. I think they expect people who want things to advocate harder than just mentioning it once. If no one brings it up again, then they assume that no one cares.

Quite the opposite. If you “pester” for something, they’ll explicitly reject it.

I didn't say pester, I said advocate for it.
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