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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

#241

Post by theamk »

kibwen wrote: post #221
theamk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, yes. In practice, very rarely. Lots of 'curl | sh' do secondary fetches, and those don't come with hash checks. And even if they come with hash checks _today_, there is no guarantee next version won't quietly remove them.

> And even if they come with hash checks _today_, there is no guarantee next version won't quietly remove them. ...But you could say this about literally every security measure in literally every codebase. At any point, anyone could quietly remove anything that enhances security, or quietly add anything that reduces security. So what's your point?

Yes, technically it's all Turing-complete, but conventions matter, a lot. And Rust, being a mature project, is very likely to follow the conventions.

"static toolchain .tar.gz" means bunch of files you download and manually extract. There may be an install.sh script, but it'll just copy files around, not download extra files. And sometimes install.sh is optional, and tools can be run directly from extraction location.

"curl | bash" means "do whatever developers think gives best experience with minimal prompts", which absolutely means download extra files, but also install system packages, update ~/.bashrc, change system settings and so on.

".run installer" mean interactive installer, Windows-style, often with actual GUI. Often goes into /opt.

"deb file" means "all installed files are managed by apt, and can be examined. /etc conflicts are managed by apt. pre/post install scripts are minimal, and there is a clean uninstall command you can trust to actually work".

You can have deviations - like curl|bash used to pull a deb file or something - but no one likes surprises, so people usually stick to their lanes. If you have .deb files, it might get an officially-specified dependency, more files and maybe a post-inst script, but it won't suddenly start rewriting your .bashrc. Having static toolchain suddenly download files will make many people unhappy, so it likely won't happen either.

(One exception to this rule is enterprise software being packaged into .deb files - Google Chrome surprised everyone when they started to install apt source in their postinst, but many enterprise softwares (cough nomachine cough) do much worse things, like only using apt to unpack their installer file, an dthen running their proprietary install script in postinst)

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#242

Post by duskdozer »

einr wrote: post #219
bigfishrunning wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but again, the bsd userspace already has a permissive license. if the mustache twirling villains want to lock down stuff, they can do it now. they don't need any push forward.

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…

>that means you can't disallow access to banking websites for generic-browser-on-generic-OS now. But we are, brick by brick, building a foundation where that will seem inevitable.

If you have too much non-standard stuff going on in your browser or mobile device, this is already happening, to a degree. Not a hard block, but increasing difficulties

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#243

Post by pjmlp »

bayindirh wrote: post #235
pjmlp wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

Well, that is why I dislike Proton, but hey games! Courtesy of Microsoft's ecosystem.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#244

Post by lelanthran »

kibwen wrote: post #239
lelanthran wrote: post #214

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? 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 prod…

> 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.

Sure, C played a great part there too, but you are ignoring the present.

What we are seeing now is a concerted effort to replace pro-user products with pro-business products.

Even if you re right that the start of Copyleft, with gcc, is revisionist history, that has no relevance to what is happening now, which is a large effort by a specific community to replace pro-user products with pro-business products.

>

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#245

Post by eklavya »

bayindirh wrote: post #154

Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Combine this with what Amutable (systemd guys) are building, and you can have monolithic, closed source, non-user-modifiable Linux distributions or flavors. Ubuntu and companies which embed Linux into their products will love this from a business perspective. Consider: An end to end…

So we will have a closed OS just like macOS and Windows but linux based. I don't see why it would stop all the other open source distros to exist.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#246

Post by duskdozer »

tmtvl wrote: post #220
DeathArrow wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that means that the massive fragmentation stops and we will have an OS 95% percent of linux users install, It might not be that bad.

Eroding user's rights is good if it means users have fewer choices because choice is bad? I suppose it would mean that resources could concentrate in a smaller, more focused set of software, but I really can't see how that would justify the harm caused.

Just think about how easy it would be though - imagine - one single OS, one single version always immediately up to date, one consistent set of installed software, attestation to ensure no adversaries are attempting to modify or install unsupported software, full accurate and thorough analytics, what a dream...

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#247

Post by duskdozer »

IshKebab wrote: post #196
bayindirh wrote: post #154

Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Combine this with what Amutable (systemd guys) are building, and you can have monolithic, closed source, non-user-modifiable Linux distributions or flavors. Ubuntu and companies which embed Linux into their products will love this from a business perspective. Consider: An end to end…

> Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Can we stop this conspiracy nonsense? They have explicitly stated that licensing was not a motivation, and even if you think they're lying it wouldn't make any sense anyway! No Tivoization is foiled by Coreutils being GPL. That's ridiculous for so many reasons, not least you can j…

Well, why not license it as GPL then? If they don't care of course.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#248

Post by bayindirh »

kibwen wrote: post #240
bayindirh wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> have the courage to make an actual statement.

Well, that's funny. Considering all the comments I have written for this submission.

First of all, most of the arguments I'd make is already addressed by lelanthran. Do I need to write the same things over and over? It's bad etiquette to write the same things said by someone else. This is why we have the voting mechanism here.

So, since you insist, let me reiterate the same thing.

No I don't refuse to use C, because most of the GPL software which is enabling everything we do today is written in C or a C-descendant language. However, as I write everywhere, I refuse to use Rust because of two reasons:

1- LLVM only for now (I don't use any language which doesn't have a compiler in GCC) 2- Rust's apparent rewrite in rust, in MIT, replace the thing and beat it with a club if it refuses to die attitude.

For reference, uutils and sister projects use "drop-in-replacement" and "completely replace" leisurely, signaling their clear intentions to forcefully replace GPL code with more permissive, business-friendly bits.

I tend to reluctantly accept Rust in the Kernel since gccrs is in the works and progressing steadily, and Rust guys are somewhat forced to write a proper reference for their language and back it with proper PLT, since it's a hard requirement if you want your programming language to be a long-living, dependable one.

Similarly, you use words like courage and non-sequitur leisurely. I'm not sure it's fitting in this instance.

Re: What it means that Ubuntu is using Rust

#250

Post by IshKebab »

duskdozer wrote: post #247
IshKebab wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, Ubuntu using a non-GPL licensed userland means they can pull all kinds of tricks to allow more TiVoization in the Linux ecosystem. Can we stop this conspiracy nonsense? They have explicitly stated that licensing was not a motivation, and even if you think they're lying it wouldn't make any sense anyway! No Tivoization is foiled by Coreutils being GPL. That's ridiculous for so many reasons, not least you can j…

Well, why not license it as GPL then? If they don't care of course.

Good question. Probably just because most Rust projects don't use GPL and they copied that. I searched but couldn't find an answer.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they change it to GPL just to shut people up.

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