I think seanmonstar also works at Amazon, his projects are exceptional and I've been following him from his MooTools days.
Many of his peers went to work on React. Others like davidwalsh worked at Mozilla.
I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
181–190 of 363 posts
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are we reading the same thread? I don't think their involvement is at issue.
I've read the thread, and I'm unsure what the issue actually is. Can someone state what the actual problem is?
AFAICS Steve wants to ensure that none of the members of the Foundation have more influence than the others. He seems to suggest that Amazon has taken over a significant portion of control lately (IANAL but I think by deciding to not renew the contract of the Executive Director for the foreseeable future, control of the Foundation is vested in the Chair of the Board, aka for now Amazon, and maybe they are trying to do some shady stuff)
This is all speculation, I hope Steve can write a blogpost to detail clearly the situation. He already namedropped, and these tweets with scarce information only fuel confusion, which IMHO can do severe damage, as all miscommunication problems.
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but try to put yourself in Steve's shoes. It is very hard to publicly criticize some of the behavior of a group you are a member of without burning bridges or deeply harming relationships. In another comment, Steve said he was not a member of the Rust Foundation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28514771
Is individual membership even an option? https://foundation.rust-lang.org/info/become-a-member/ doesn't seem to contemplate it.
It is not currently an option, as far as I know. That said as a member of project leadership I would be eligible to run for various positions and be one, but I did not.
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
He called out specific things and had a tweet which was pretty vague about some bad behavior. If you want to focus on that and imply it's childish you are the one distracting from discussing more important issues. That's probably why takes like that get downvoted. --- From the comments Steve has made it sounds like Amazon effectively has control of Rust not only because of their large involvement but also because a s…
He said in his first tweet that he wants to have a "serious conversation", then goes on to list three grievances: that Amazon has a lot of involvement in Rust leadership, that Amazon "marginalized the core team" (but no details) and that Amazon "has done some other dirty shit" (but no details). That's two out of three grievances that have no substance whatsoever. You cannot have a serious conversation about these thi…
I think not adding details was a warning to Amazon to step up on their front or he will indeed 'air out dirty laundry', but it does feel disingenuous given we're asked to support him based on his word (and history of rustc contributions) alone.
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#185Earlier 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…
I see now what this is truly about.
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
But... doesn't Rust have a Foundation that controls resources and can be financially backed? It seems like now you are saying that employees of large corporations also should not have serious roles in such Foundations.
> doesn't Rust have a Foundation that controls resources and can be financially backed? Guess which FAANG company has de facto control of the foundation now? I'll give you two hints: it starts with A and isn't Apple.
Alphabet? The correct answer is we don't know since people are being coy with details......
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want Amazon to define Rust but I want my pal to define it doesn't exactly sound like a solid argument. Is there any more meat on the bone here?
Ashley has been really great for the Rust community, isn't currently employed by a massive corporation, and has some really solid views & principles on how to empower open source work. (See some of her talks) Empowering open source work on Rust is exactly what the Rust foundation is supposed to do, which is why I'd really have preferred a Rust foundation with Ashley as ED.
An unfortunate blemish on her record is her handling of `wasm-pack`.
She worked to ensure it become a critical part of the Rust/Wasm ecosystem and then silently stopped maintaining it. For most of 2020 / 2021 `wasm-pack` was not updated with pull requests and security fixes because Ashley did not transfer publish rights.
Even though `wasm-pack` became unusable for many users it was still described as necessary in the official Rust / Wasm tutorials. Likely this set back the Rust/Wasm ecosystem by discouraging many new members.
It would have been far better if she just spoke up and asked for help.
It seems she wanted to ignore a problem she didn't want to deal with, which I can relate to, but that's not a good quality in an executive director.
Some relevant GitHub issues: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack/issues/914 https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack/issues/928
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is individual membership even an option? https://foundation.rust-lang.org/info/become-a-member/ doesn't seem to contemplate it.
It is not currently an option, as far as I know. That said as a member of project leadership I would be eligible to run for various positions and be one, but I did not.
Well that's interesting. It looks like the Linux Foundation all over again and its very surprising to see how one could not for-see that such issues like this would happen.
After reading the comments, I think that this one [0] even directly shared the same structure concerns [1] you are bringing up and not giving companies like Amazon too much control.
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#189Deja vu? This seems like the story of the C++ Committee all over again, isn't it? Maybe this is the price you pay for adoption and popularity..
I get what you mean, but there is a key difference and I think that difference is driving a good portion of then for/against comments in this thread and elsewhere. The entirety of the Rust Principles, etc, seems to stem from the belief, supported by Niko in the Principles blog post and others by wording, that Rust is not just a programming language, but is a ‘community’. I can find no analogue in the C++ Committee, or user base generally. C++ is a programming language that individuals and groups use to make software, full stop. This difference leads to arguments/stances/positions that have very little to do with the material definition of the technological tool and more to do with some loosely defined feelings of ‘community’. The C++ Committee story was primarily about Google and other large corporate interests advocating a large techno local change in the language to benefit their use case with no input or consideration for other users of the tool, but this seems to be primarily focused on feelings of non-community control and business structuring. Maybe I’m wrong and Amazon is having an influence on Rust, the programming language, that disregards fit for purpose for non-Amazon developers, but I’d need to see something to support that before your comparison is a better fit.
Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tenets as used internally at AWS are a set of principles that each team decides for themselves, as guides in the face of ambiguity. There's no overarching set of tenets (that I'm aware of), so this is probably just referring to the idea of having a guiding set of principles to resolve tradeoffs.
This. Each org, team, and project has their own set of tenets. There are a few common sense tenets that are overarching (Security is priority 0), but there is no one set of 'AWS tenets.' Tenets are used as quick statements to validate decisions. And the tenants are always up for debate and revision. Using 'AWS tenets' isn't some nefarious way to control Rust. It's borrowing a useful (IMO) management/decision making s…
I disagree a lot. I don’t think using AWS Tenets was done nefariously.. but it has an important implication on the Rust community as a whole.
Engineers are really relying on the Rust Foundation to do right by them, and by adopting Amazon or other big tech company principles it’s spitting in the face of engineers who don’t trust them and adding the potential for bias in decision making of the foundation.
I’m hopeful that the Amazon contributors will understand this and show full support.