Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental

Post by dang » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

9rx wrote: post #603

jlrubin wrote: post #573

@dang title has been changed to "The (successful) end of the kernel Rust experiment", since there were complaints in the articles comments from the committee members that that was a sensationalization of what actually happened.

Isn't successful already implied? Unsuccessful experiments have no end unless motivation to keep trying runs out — but Rust seems to have no end to motivation behind it. Besides, if it were to ever reach the point of there being no remaining motivation, there would be no remaining motivation for those who have given up to announce that they have given up, so we'd never see the headline to begin with.

Post by maximilianburke » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

menaerus wrote: post #316

baq wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t spread FUD, you can check some example code yourself. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/a.hindborg/l...

Sorry but what have I said wrong? The nature of code written in kernel development is such that using unsafe is inevitable. Low-level code with memory juggling and patterns that you usually don't find in application code. And yes, I have had a look into the examples - maybe one or two years there was a significant patch submitted to the kernel and number of unsafe sections made me realize at that moment that Rust, in…

Post by sebzim4500 » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:40 PM UTC

jenadine wrote: post #183

And yet, the Linux kernel's Rust code uses unstable features only available on a nightly compiler. Not optimal for ease of compilation and building old versions of the Kernel. (You need a specific version of the nightly compiler to build a specific version of the Kernel)

Post by sophacles » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #570

Xylakant wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that the Google Android team has been tracking data to answer that question for years now and their conclusion is: ------- The primary security concern regarding Rust generally centers on the approximately 4% of code written within unsafe{} blocks. This subset of Rust has fueled significant speculation, misconceptions, and even theories that unsafe Rust might be more buggy than C. Empirical evidence shows…

> The practice of encapsulation enables local reasoning about safety invariants. > The additional scrutiny that unsafe{} blocks receive. None of this supports an argument that "unsafe Rust is safer than C". It's just saying that with enough scrutiny on those unsafe blocks, the potential bugs will be found and addressed as part of development. That's a rather different claim.

Post by 9rx » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #611

9rx wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't successful already implied? Unsuccessful experiments have no end unless motivation to keep trying runs out — but Rust seems to have no end to motivation behind it. Besides, if it were to ever reach the point of there being no remaining motivation, there would be no remaining motivation for those who have given up to announce that they have given up, so we'd never see the headline to begin with.

We've done unsuccessful experiments on HN over the years, in the sense that they failed to achieve anything we'd hoped for and caused enough damage that we had to call them off.