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I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

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Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#251

Post by hvis »

kzrdude wrote: post #225
mjw1007 wrote: post #25

The Rust Foundation has indeed been disappointingly opaque. Their website contains only anodyne director bios and board meeting minutes. The minutes go up to May's meeting, with most of the content omitted under a "Private Session" heading. AIUI the main need for a foundation was so they could own the Rust domain names and trademarks. Eight months later, I've seen no announcement on whether any progress has been made…

Do we expect too much? Just like with Mozilla? We want them to be a force for good, but they also need to be effective. Though this is less true for Rust than for Mozilla, Rust the language shouldn't really need a revenue

And Mozilla has earned a lot of credit (apriori trust) over the years. Which the newly formed foundation has not.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#252

Post by kbenson »

open-source-ux wrote: post #65
dyingkneepad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a single company mostly control an Open Source project means that if the company decides to drop the project, stop funding it, and/or move devs from working on it to work on something else, progress halts and it's difficult to get things back. That's why so many projects try to have Foundation that controls resources and can be financially backed, etc. There's also the "if the company goes evil the project may…

I agree with the points in your comment, but one can also acknowledge that the popularity of some programming languages is buoyed by corporate sponsorship or the association with a company. Would Rust or Go have enjoyed their popularity without the support of Mozilla and Google? Also, without a generous benefactor, open source languages have to scrape funding together piecemeal from different sources. For example, bo…

Having a single company with most the control is not necessarily the same as having a corporate sponsorship. A language could have many corporate sponsorships and benefactors. The problem being referenced is having one benefactor with too much control.

That problem is fundamental. As soon as one entity gets too much control, it's impossible to wrest control back without their agreement, or a long protracted battle which will hurt the thing being fought over.

Nobody is saying keep corporate interests completely divorced, this is just a call to be aware that one interest is getting too much power, whether on purpose or just through increased interest on their part, but the end result is the same. If we care about Rust not being beholden to one entity at the expense of others, then action should be taken now (even if that action is just much increased scrutiny and asking Amazon to please make sure the executive directory position is filled ASAP, and not with someone Amazon affiliated).

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#253

Post by hvis »

wodenokoto wrote: post #4

Why was it a problem that Mozilla was heavily involved in Rust? As an outsider, I felt that Mozilla lend credibility to Rusts efforts, and Rust gave Mozilla relevance.

I think the problem was more along the financial side: like why the whole of FAANG benefits from the tech while Mozilla foots most of the bill.

And apparently that couldn't change until Rust went off on its independent journey.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#254

Post by dralley »

geodel wrote: post #76

I mean what Steve says makes sense. Steve is far move involved with Rust. However independently reading those documents from Amazon I felt "God, Rust seems more corporate language then even Go, Java or Swift."

Define "corporate language". All of those languages are more or less completely dominated by a single corporate sponsor with a significant portion of the decisions and discussions being done internally, so the potential for drama to spill out is a bit less.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#255

Post by est31 »

IDK I think this is overblown. Amazon employs two core members of Rust leadership. Both of whom worked hard on making Rust amazing like few others did. Both of whom who joined Mozilla to work on amazing projects for wages below what different places in the industry would pay. Do such people really betray their project of passion for money? Note that joining Amazon alone is no such act. It's joining Amazon and then becoming a heavy lobbyist for whatever Amazon wants to do with the language.

Also note that leaders of teams don't have many special rights. They are more primus inter pares than bosses. This doesn't mean that people don't listen to them, but it's more informal and due to respect of the individual from what I can see. Respect that they'd lose if they supported some crazy Amazon idea that is harmful for the language.

As for core team vs foundation issues. I share concerns voiced in the community that the foundation is intransparent. But ultimately, the core team as well as the foundation don't do day to day operation of the language.

Maybe Steve sees something that I don't, and he's certainly in a better position to see things, but I don't see much of a threat, at least not right now.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#256

Post by erk__ »

mattbnr32 wrote: post #133
steveklabnik wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

This would likely have been easier to know if the foundation had been releasing the minutes from the meetings, the last set of minutes released at the moment is from May

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#257

Post by stale2002 »

kbenson wrote: post #243
secuthro22 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> decided to not have a Rust Foundation ED, meaning Chair has outsized power in the Foundation > that Amazon "marginalized the core team" (but no details) That seems like details to me. It's also extrapolated on elsewhere here. > That's two out of three grievances that have no substance whatsoever. You cannot have a serious conversation about these things if there is not more detail. Actually, you could, just by ign…

> and assessing them based on merit.

What merit? Lets take the claim of "marginalized the core team"?

WTF does that even mean? As in specifically, what was the action that amazon did, to marginalize anyone? Did they say mean things about them? Did they have a meeting without them? Did they kick them off of a group? Did they create a feature roadmap, without getting the core teams feedback?

Just say specifically what happened, with actual details, that describe exactly how someone was marginalize, and the consequences of that!

> reason to ignore other points

What other points? Specifically? The only verifiable point, that anyone has mentioned, is that amazon has a board seat somewhere, on some organization.

But even that point is low on details. Have they used the board seat to do anything bad? Whats the concern?

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#258

Post by pphysch »

mrtranscendence wrote: post #240
pphysch wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big (Tech) companies, especially Amazon, are non-capitalist in the sense that are large bureaucracies with complex internal economic planning mechanisms insulated from the "free market". Amazon has tremendous economic planning capability, perhaps more than Stalin's CPSU ever did. That doesn't mean they are "socialist", of course--they are denizens of the mixed economy, "islands of conscious power in this ocean of unc…

This does not mean that big tech companies are not capitalist in the sense that ordinary people use the word "capitalist", nor indeed in the sense that economists generally use the word "capitalist" either. No critic of capitalism intends for their critique not to apply to actual businesses as they must exist (even Valve). It may be an interesting fact that firms are not organized unconsciously according to a price m…

This "ordinary" definition of capitalism is vacuous because it views all mixed economies as "capitalist" economies. It's a fallacious definition that marginalizes economic "socialism" as an impossible bogeyman (i.e. zero private property). TINA and all that.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#259

Post by bmurphy1976 »

caniszczyk wrote: post #211
rvz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513316 [1] https://new…

How is this a Linux Foundation issue? The LF usually has board seats reserved for folks who are maintainers, committers and so on, essentially represents all the interests in the community. Don't put this on the LF, this is definitely on the folks who bootstrapped the foundation and setup the governance in the way they did.

He didn't say it WAS a Linux Foundation issue, he said it was LIKE the Linux Foundation. I'm assuming there was some Linux Foundation drama in the past he is specifically referencing that this mirrors. I'm not familiar enough with either group to narrow things down further.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#260

Post by abzug »

hvis wrote: post #251
kzrdude wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we expect too much? Just like with Mozilla? We want them to be a force for good, but they also need to be effective. Though this is less true for Rust than for Mozilla, Rust the language shouldn't really need a revenue

And Mozilla has earned a lot of credit (apriori trust) over the years. Which the newly formed foundation has not.

And lost me as a user years ago because the way it was being (mis)managed.
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