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What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

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Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#231

Post by [deleted] »

rhdunn wrote: post #87
pjmlp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Victor Ciura from Microsoft DevDiv has several talks on how this is currently an adoption problem at Microsoft. They have been working around it with DLLs, and COM/WinRT, but still the tooling isn't ideal.

COM is interesting as it implements interfaces using the C++ vtable layout, which can be done in C. Dynamic COM (DCOM) is used to provide interoperability with Visual Basic. You can also access .NET/C# objects/interfaces via COM. It has an interface to allow you to get the type metadata but that isn't necessary. This makes it possible to e.g. get the C#/.NET exception stack trace from a C/C++ application.

[deleted]

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#232

Post by pjmlp »

bayindirh wrote: post #180
pjmlp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be GNU/Linux for a reason, Android/Linux is surely not GPL userland and there are others as such. There is also a reason why all the GNU/Linux competition on embedded space, including Linux Foundation's own Zephyr, aren't GPL licensed. People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel.

> People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel. I certainly don't and that's why I'm advocating the userspace shall stay GPL. The freedom has two pillars. Kernel and userspace. If you mow one of the two down, you lose everything.

Yet there are already distros like Chimera Linux and Alpine Linux.

That train is long gone, as folks rather have business friendly FOSS projects.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#233

Post by bayindirh »

superkuh wrote: post #229
bigfishrunning wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

further down that thread https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/10/msg00288.html ``` Rust is already a hard requirement on all Debian release architectures and ports except for alpha, hppa, m68k, and sh4 (which do not provide sqv). ``` It seems to me that the APT change was just a nail in the coffin of these older architectures, which would have eventually been sunset anyway, due to sqv not being available. If yo…

Yep. And nothing you've linked or pointed out changes the claim I made: that re: rust, Canonical employees are making the decisions, not Debian.

Well, it's not always true.

Look at how the proposal for making netplan the default network manager in Debian went. Not good, from Canonical's perspective.

Making /tmp behave the way systemd guys want also went not according to plan. The behavior is modified somewhat because of the discussion.

Rust's influence doesn't come from Canonical per se, but from its promise to eradicate memory related bugs. The initial hype was off the charts, but it's coming down, and the shortcomings are becoming obvious.

Canonical is trying to affect Debian, that's true, but it's not always a given.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#235

Post by bayindirh »

pjmlp wrote: post #232
bayindirh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People seem to forget Linux is only a kernel. I certainly don't and that's why I'm advocating the userspace shall stay GPL. The freedom has two pillars. Kernel and userspace. If you mow one of the two down, you lose everything.

Yet there are already distros like Chimera Linux and Alpine Linux. That train is long gone, as folks rather have business friendly FOSS projects.

If we stop fighting for anything just because someone said it's long gone, we'd have nothing.

World's history has changed through wars where some people said that winning [said war] is impossible.

Nothing is set in stone. World is changing more drastically than ever. Assuming that we can't change things or things will stay a certain way is a funny fallacy, at best.

Permanence is an illusion. The pendulum is on the move. It might be moving in a way I don't like, but it can't continue like that forever. I'm just doing what I feel right. I'd rather die trying than regretting that I didn't try.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#236

Post by bayindirh »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #230
einr wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but people don't really want to use the BSD userspace. A lot of the Linux stuff people want to build on assumes a GNU userland and it's not trivial to build a BSD/Linux that actually does relevant computer stuff. But in places where that stuff isn't relevant, we already see a lot of locked-down devices like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation based on BSD precisely because they can leverage free software but st…

People give away their freedoms all the time. Most people are walking around with facebook and tiktok tracking their every move. they don't care. Some linux users aren't going to stop this sort of thing from happening. If Chase Bank wants to only allow MacOS and Windows 11 computers to access their website, the 1% of their userbase that uses something else isn't going to move the needle, and 99% of their users won't…

> If this was going to happen, it would have already happened. The pieces are all there already.

Same things were said for:

    - Removal of DRM from music: Happened.
    - Age verification in the internet: Happening.
    - Locked down personal devices: Happened.
    - Total surveillance in cities: Happened.
    - Not being able to buy but only rent: Happened in many digital formats.
    - Internet activation of software: Happened.
    - Tracking individual persons real-time: Happened.
    - Browser attestation: Google is trying hard.
    - Attestation for Internet Banking: Reality in S. Korea.
etc. etc.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#237

Post by ninkendo »

zozbot234 wrote: post #225
ninkendo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can express Option for a concrete Foo I don’t think that’s true? https://users.rust-lang.org/t/option-is-ffi-safe-or-not/2982... You could maybe say that a pointer can be transmuted to an Option because there’s an Option-specific optimization that an Option uses null as the None value, but that’s not always guaranteed. And it doesn’t apply to non-references, for instance Option ’s None value would be indist…

You're right that there isn't a single standard convention for representing e.g. Option , but that's just as true of C. You'd just define a repr(C) compatible object that can be converted to or from Option , and pass that through the ABI interface, while the conversion step would happen internally and transparently on both sides. That kind of marshaling is ubiquitous when using FFI.

> but that's just as true of C

Right, that's the whole point of this thread. The only stable ABI rust has is one where you can only use C's features at the boundaries. It would be really nice if that wasn't the case (ie. if you could express "real" rust types at a stable ABI boundary.)

As OP said, "I don't think deflecting by saying "but C is no safer" is super interesting". People seem intent on steering that conversation that way anyway, I guess.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#238

Post by einr »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #230
einr wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but people don't really want to use the BSD userspace. A lot of the Linux stuff people want to build on assumes a GNU userland and it's not trivial to build a BSD/Linux that actually does relevant computer stuff. But in places where that stuff isn't relevant, we already see a lot of locked-down devices like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation based on BSD precisely because they can leverage free software but st…

People give away their freedoms all the time. Most people are walking around with facebook and tiktok tracking their every move. they don't care. Some linux users aren't going to stop this sort of thing from happening. If Chase Bank wants to only allow MacOS and Windows 11 computers to access their website, the 1% of their userbase that uses something else isn't going to move the needle, and 99% of their users won't…

People give away their freedoms all the time. Most people are walking around with facebook and tiktok tracking their every move. they don't care.

This is absolutely true. I'm saying someone should care, because it does matter.

Some linux users aren't going to stop this sort of thing from happening. If Chase Bank wants to only allow MacOS and Windows 11 computers to access their website, the 1% of their userbase that uses something else isn't going to move the needle, and 99% of their users won't care (or even notice).

For some businesses, losing 1% of your customers is actually a lot of customers and a lot of money, and all else being equal they would prefer to not lose them.

If this was going to happen, it would have already happened. The pieces are all there already.

No, they really aren't. Again, it's perhaps technically feasible to flip the switch, but it doesn't make business sense yet.

How many people are doing online banking without running on a fully cryptographically verifiable/attestable OS? This means everyone not using a TPM, Secure Boot, etc. This means grandpa with an old Windows 10 machine or an old Mac that perhaps he should not still be using but he doesn't care, he just wants to pay his bills. I don't have numbers of course but I bet you this starts looking like a hell of a lot more than 1% of the userbase.

There are web APIs for this sort of thing in all major browsers but no one is really using them yet. But they exist for a reason, much like Windows 11 requires a TPM for a reason, and this tech will at some point be deployed for things like online banking. Of course it will.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#239

Post by kibwen »

lelanthran wrote: post #214
kibwen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this same metric, do you refuse to use C because the vast majority of OSS C codebases are permissively licensed? Surely you see that this makes no sense, yes? Neither Rust-the-language nor Rust-the-ecosystem are any more hostile to GPL than any other language and ecosystem.

> By this same metric, do you refuse to use C because the vast majority of OSS C codebases are permissively licensed? It's not comparable - the Rewrite-it-in-Rust community is aiming to replace the existing pro-user products, with new pro-business products. The last significant online C community was the one that gave us the pro-user products in the first place. > Surely you see that this makes no sense, yes? Neither…

> The last significant online C community was the one that gave us the pro-user products in the first place.

You mean the OSI, headed by famous C hacker Eric S. Raymond, the permissive-license rebellion against the GPL? Pretending that the MIT/BSD licenses aren't a legacy of the C ecosystem is revisionist history.

> It's not comparable - the Rewrite-it-in-Rust community is aiming to replace the existing pro-user products, with new pro-business products.

It's clear that you have no idea what you're talking about. There is no "rewrite-it-in-Rust community", there are just people using Rust and writing what they want. That copyleft licenses have lost mindshare to permissive licenses in the decades since the rise of the OSI is a broader movement in OSS that long predates Rust, and has nothing to do with Rust itself.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#240

Post by kibwen »

bayindirh wrote: post #215
kibwen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this same metric, do you refuse to use C because the vast majority of OSS C codebases are permissively licensed? Surely you see that this makes no sense, yes? Neither Rust-the-language nor Rust-the-ecosystem are any more hostile to GPL than any other language and ecosystem.

> Neither Rust-the-language nor Rust-the-ecosystem are any more hostile to GPL than any other language and ecosystem. Acta, non verba.

Couching a non-sequitur in Latin does not an argument make. By all means, have the courage to make an actual statement.
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