I refuse to let Amazon define Rust • Hacker News Board

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#131

Post by LanceH » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

secuthro22 wrote: post #88

marricks wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Klabnik is well known in HN and in the Rust community, he mentioned it privately and doesn't seem to want to air dirty laundry more than he has too. You can either see his history and trust that he wants to get as much done with as little said as possible or say you trust Amazon. Either is understandable but I think it's reasonable to be a known member of a community and speak up just enough to hopefully get th…

>You can either see his history and trust that he wants to get as much done with as little said as possible or say you trust Amazon Or I can trust neither, and expect that both sides act like adults and actually state their concerns and accusations rather than vague "just trust me, you should be upset" statements. Whipping everyone into a furor with vague concerns without actually giving enough information to address…

I said something similar and got downvoted. I should have been more clear that posting this to HN as though it is meaningful is the problem.

There is no substance to the tweets (it's his twitter account, go wild), and really has no business being here.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#132

Post by whateveracct » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

This is what happens when you seek (success at all costs)

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#133

Post by mattbnr32 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #44

poppejans wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not let them have the foundation chair. I think Ashley would've made a great chairwoman, but she just might not have wanted to become chairwoman of the foundation.

> she just might not have wanted to become chairwoman of the foundation. I can assure you she would have been happy to continue to be the executive director. I talked about this briefly in the thread, but wasn't quite clear enough, so might as well also elaborate here, since it was brought up. I am not worried that she will not be the next ED. I mean, I would have preferred it, but it's not my decision to make. The s…

Hey Steve! Forgive me if you already have touched on this, let me know and I can do more digging myself, but upon expiration of Ashley's contract as ED, you said it was the foundation that decided to not extend her contract. Would that have be the group decision including each member director or solely the chairwoman's?

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#134

Post by alexchamberlain » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

rst wrote: post #90

jdblair wrote: post #43

The facts are pretty thin here, but this seems to be the core tweet: https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1437441118745071617 To summarize: * Amazon has too much administrative influence * Amazon has marginalized the core team * also un-stated dirty tricks by Amazon I think rust is great, and I love with the rust community has accomplished, and I wouldn't want to see Amazon break that. But from this thread I don't…

Rust isn't the only community that's at risk of getting coopted by corporate sponsors. The PostgreSQL core team now has an explicit policy that no single company employs more than half its members -- but to follow it, last year, they had to expand membership (after companies employing 50% of the prior core team merged, and they didn't want to boot anyone). https://postgresql.fund/blog/is-it-time-to-modernize-postgre.…

It's worth noting that this has been an informal rule for over 20 years, the organisations in question are Postgres specific specialists and the developers in question have long histories with the project. I don't think it's quite the same to be honest.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#135

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

sleepybrett wrote: post #12

cratermoon wrote: post #5

Ohhhhhhh, this explains a lot of the "Rust is the next great thing" I keep seeing around. Amazon has taken a page out of Microsoft's 90s playbook of embracing stuff and astroturfing their extensions until they claim it as their own and extinguish competition. I hope the Rust team finds a way out, but I suspect now that if Amazon has their hooks in it then they'll just fork it.

Unsurprisingly there are a lot of ex-softies at amazon.

And apparently at least 5 of them visit HN

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#136

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #127

marricks wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Klabnik is well known in HN and in the Rust community, he mentioned it privately and doesn't seem to want to air dirty laundry more than he has too. You can either see his history and trust that he wants to get as much done with as little said as possible or say you trust Amazon. Either is understandable but I think it's reasonable to be a known member of a community and speak up just enough to hopefully get th…

I assume that Amazon getting too much control is a real problem. But also suspect that deep down the true concern Klabnik has is that Steve Klabnik thinks Rust is about him, or at least he is the one that is supposed to write articles about what Rust is about. Not someone from Amazon or anywhere else.

I do not think Rust is about me. Note that I specifically say that Rust should not be about any individual, let alone a company. I’ve made my case against BDFLs for years.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#137

Post by jhugo » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #67

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But from this thread I don't know enough to raise objections. It sounds like a Rust foundation governance issue, the sort of thing that comes up from time-to-time on most big successful projects. I'm also confused. The Tweet thread switches between Amazon and Rust Foundation almost interchangeably. Is the implication that Amazon has co-opted the Rust foundation? Are the other Rust Foundation members being sidelined…

On that last bit, I elaborated on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513656

Could you elaborate on what is so important about the chair of the foundation? From what I understand, it's not really stewardship of the language so much as stewardship of a bunch of administrative minutiae.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#138

Post by skohan » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

Decabytes wrote: post #91

I actually really like Zig's stance on this. Not having company members on the Board + trying to employ developers from the community helps with the issues that Rust is currently facing. Of course due to Rust's history things work differently, but hopefully Steve's comments will get them to look at this issue more critically

I guess this is one of the benefits of having the language direction owned by a single author - they might feel a bit more empowered to make this kind of principled stance in the face of strong incentives to trade funding for corporate guidance.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#139

Post by refenestrator » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #45

darksaints wrote: post #29

I can understand every aversion to Amazon having control over Rust. But looking at these principles: * “Reliable: If it compiles, it works.” * “Performant: Idiomatic code runs efficiently.” * “Supportive: The language, tools, and community are here to help.” * “Productive: A little effort does a lot of work.” * “Transparent: You can predict and control low-level details.” * “Versatile: You can do anything with Rust.”…

The problem is that they are bromides and claptrap, not principles. There is an important distinction to be made here between principles and values, which they are not making in part because Amazon themselves do not understand the difference.[0] Having a community define its values is important[1], but this is emphatically not the way to do it -- and these are not it besides. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QMGA…

Sure, but is this existential? The CoC has platitudes, too. Why is this some scary takeover?

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#140

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

jhugo wrote: post #137

steveklabnik wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that last bit, I elaborated on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513656

Could you elaborate on what is so important about the chair of the foundation? From what I understand, it's not really stewardship of the language so much as stewardship of a bunch of administrative minutiae.

Administrative minutiae is important. The foundation controls our IP and a large pot of money. How that is used matters. I am not taking any beef with specific moves here, just pointing out that a single organization controls a lot, more than most people probably realize.