I refuse to let Amazon define Rust • Hacker News Board

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#341

Post by fsociety » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

whoknew1122 wrote: post #192

fsociety wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Again, Rust hasn't adopted Amazon's principals. It has adopted a mechanism used by Amazon by which it can define its own principles. The tenets of the team I work on are stuff like 'treat every customer like your best friend on their worst day'. And 'learn something new every day'. They are tenets of a team in AWS, which makes them (to some extent) 'AWS tenets'. Are they somehow nefarious because there are people who…

Right and now we are in semiconductor shortages because people adopted Toyota concepts in a non-Toyota context. In the mean time, Toyota adapted their own concepts to weather the storm of semiconductor shortages, for a short while atleast.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#342

Post by samhwr » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

potamic wrote: post #337

yannoninator wrote: post #6

Still don't know why we should let these big tech companies have board seats on programming language foundations for them to have the power to do this. I feared this would happen months ago when Facebook joined the board and even talked to steve about my concerns [0] [1]. Unfortunately it has come true with no surprise. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125591 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2698928…

This really did not age well. There's a problem with this kind of absolute logical reasoning that it's impossible to argue against. "Sure this company has showed evil in the past, but what specific data do you have to show that they will be evil again?" "Sure this structure allows the company to have a lot of power, but what specifically makes you think they will abuse it?" This kind of specious reasoning is far too…

Hey, I know this is quite far downthread and didn’t get much attention - and there’s a 92% chance you won’t even see this comment due to HN’s bizarre lack of any adequate notification mechanism - but I just wanted to say I really appreciate your writing this. This crystallises a lot of thoughts I have about that kind of ‘selective pyrrhonism’, where positions one agrees with can be justified with only vague hunches (or defining your position as the null hypothesis: e.g. we default for no clear reason to assuming Amazon’s benevolence), but people who disagree are demanded to give preposterously specific evidence.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#343

Post by cratermoon » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

zelly wrote: post #325

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.

Nah Rust evangelism is pretty organic. I remember it having a cult 6 years ago too, before any of these companies got involved.

> Rust evangelism is pretty organic

I'm sure it was. But it's six years on, and companies have gotten involved. They now have a financial stake. It would be naive to think that evangelism is still genuine grass roots, in the same way that it's naive to think the stuff on your FB feed reflects what your friends find interesting and worth sharing.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#344

Post by volta83 » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 8:44 AM UTC

nabakin wrote: post #336

volta83 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW these are not "Amazon employees that infiltrated the Rust ranks to take over". Mozilla fired everybody, and companies heavily invested in Rust like Amazon, Facebook, etc. hired them. So over night some people have labeled the opinions and work of these people as "Amazon opinions". Amazon has a lot of people working on improving Rust itself, and this gives them power, because they decide on what stuff the people…

Yeah of course, these are members of the community that were already contributing a great deal and just hired by Amazon. However, if Amazon is able to control the project and makes decisions for itself instead of the entire community of developers, that's a problem. My inexperienced opinion in OSS project management is leadership should be representative of the users and not cater to a subset.

That's rarely the case.

Leadership is usually representative of merit, and merit comes from putting in the work.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#345

Post by CRConrad » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #223

bythckr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the issue with Mozilla being the patron of Rust? They are managing the Firefox project well. Would it be better if Rust was a part of the Apache foundation?

Apache is where projects go to die. So, probably not.

> Apache is where projects go to die.

I thought that was CA? Oh wait, no, that's where they go after they're dead.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#346

Post by CRConrad » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

akagusu wrote: post #73

Google has Go, now Amazon has Rust, and Amazon will not let Rust go away. Amazon has enough money (and no moral or ethics) to take Rust and twist the reality to make people believe Amazon is right and Rust community is wrong. Let's watch the show.

> Google has Go, now Amazon has Rust, and Amazon will not let Rust go away.

But will Google let Go rust away?

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#347

Post by CRConrad » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #173

akagusu wrote: post #73

Google has Go, now Amazon has Rust, and Amazon will not let Rust go away. Amazon has enough money (and no moral or ethics) to take Rust and twist the reality to make people believe Amazon is right and Rust community is wrong. Let's watch the show.

They're doing it now. Check out the flagged dead comments libeling Klabnik.

Not all of those are necessarily intentionally libelous. Many could be based on misunderstandings caused by reading the InfoWorld article before it was updated to be somewhat less of a paean to Amazon, or not reading it at all.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#348

Post by CRConrad » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

secuthro22 wrote: post #123

yannoninator wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying there isn't an issue with the Rust foundation's governance then? Now I'm assuming you just jumped into the comments without understanding anything no? EDIT: > We shouldn't be giving corporations too much power by letting them buy board seats in a foundation to steer the language, in this case Rust. @stale2002 I already mentioned this issue. However the user @secuthro22 continued trolling further with…

I wouldn't know. There might be, which is why I've asked you multiple times to explain the issue to me and yet you have neglected to do so.

If you can't understand something on your own, you might be grateful for an explanation, but nobody actually owes you one.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#349

Post by CRConrad » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 9:57 AM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #248

detaro wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't figure out what to be outraged about, maybe don't be outraged?

I'm not outraged at all. Where did you get this from? I was asking for details because everything has been very vague.

There are no more details to be had -- nor needed. It's very simple: If you find the mere fact that one organisation is amassing an apparently undue amount of influence something to be worried about, then be; if you don't, then don't.

The fact that you're obviously trying to paint a legitimate worry as overwrought histrionics by spelling "worried" as "outraged" would seem to indicate you're already leaning towards the latter -- perhaps sufficiently so to be intentionally trying to ridicule the original worry.

Re: I refuse to let Amazon define Rust

#350

Post by CRConrad » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

c-cube wrote: post #286

ajross wrote: post #148

Had to chime in on the first of the named "principles" of the language, because it makes a good example of what I think is wrong with the Rust community: > “Reliable: If it compiles, it works.” This isn't a principle. This is a subtweet. The principle being elucidated is something more like "fully specified semantics" or "no undefined behavior". And that's fine. But phrasing it like this is (1) obviously a lie as ple…

It's not just about UB, it's about the design encouraging good code and defensive programming. That includes enums, non nullability, immutability by default, etc.

It's always hilarious how near totally amnesiac this whole industry is. People are constantly "inventing" shit that already existed many many decades ago, including all the bugs and warts, oblivious of the fixes and improvements from the decades in between.

AFAICS much -- if not most? -- of the stuff Rust is being lavishly praised for now already existed in Nikolaus Wirth's original Pascal from the early 1970s.