It sounds like he tried that, and nobody with authority responded until he went outside the list. Even now, Linus hasn’t actually answered the question of whether more rust code should be allowed.
Martin seems to understand that adding a second language to the kernel is not only a technical concern, but a political one as well. Everyone else wants to pretend politics isn’t at play and that their objections are “purely technical.” They aren’t. I definitely understand Martin’s frustration here.
No offense, but reading through the comments it’s apparent you’re not very familiar with systems programming nor linux development. This is a common problem with vocal ‘rustaceans’, rust is their hammer regardless of the domain.
Although considering rust is prudent, there are still a ton of advantages to using C for systems programming. It is not a binary choice, there are pros and cons, and every project should choose what aligns with their priorities.
No one has ever stated that linux will be in the kernel. It was ‘go ahead and give it a shot’, which includes convincing maintainers to accept your patches. Linus has delegated trust to subsystems maintainers and an established process.
Hellwig could have been more tactful, but like it or not, arguments against a cross-language codebase have merit. Framing it as a ‘clear confession of sabotage of the r4l project’, attempting to weaponize the CoC, and trying to drum up an army via social media was all out of line.
Success was never a given, if they want r4l to succeed then they have to get patches approved and crying wolf ain’t gonna cut it.
Hellwig could have been more tactful, but like it or not, arguments against a cross-language codebase have merit. Framing it as a ‘clear confession of sabotage of the r4l project’, attempting to weaponize the CoC, and trying to drum up an army via social media was all out of line.
When a maintainer calls somebody’s efforts “cancer” – “spreading this cancer to core subsystems” – and that they’ll do everything they can to halt those efforts – “I will do everything I can do to stop this” – that’s as clear an indication of sabotage as you will ever get.
I don’t know how “whether more rust code should be allowed” is even a question. What, do you think they’re going to just cut all the rust developers off or something? Linus has always been a move slow and don’t break things kinda guy. Why should allowing rust into the kernel suddenly change that now? What is there to even answer?
The dma maintainer wants all the code he’s in charge of to be stuff he likes to work with. Whether you agree with that or not, that has absolutely nothing to do with Linus Torvalds allowing more rust code in the kernel.
They were trying to merge rust code into the dma subsystem, because what they were working on needed to talk to it, and it would be easier to do that with rust code in the dma subsystem. He said no specifically to that part. Just the stuff in the dma subsystem. That’s all. It can be worked around.
It wasn’t actually a big deal until Martin stuck his nose into a discussion that was none of his business and then cried about it on social media. I get being frustrated. The old guys are weirdly hostile sometimes, but creating drama is not the solution.
Yeah, I don’t blame him for being frustrated. I definitely empathize with him here. I don’t know about the culture around committing to the kernal, but maybe it would be better to fork and make the case with action?
Forking the Linux kernel is unlikely to go anywhere.
There is Redox, a Unix-like whole OS implemented in Rust, though I don’t know if being able to run unmodified Linux binaries is one of their goals. It looks like they’re expecting most software to be ported.
It sounds like he tried that, and nobody with authority responded until he went outside the list. Even now, Linus hasn’t actually answered the question of whether more rust code should be allowed.
Martin seems to understand that adding a second language to the kernel is not only a technical concern, but a political one as well. Everyone else wants to pretend politics isn’t at play and that their objections are “purely technical.” They aren’t. I definitely understand Martin’s frustration here.
No offense, but reading through the comments it’s apparent you’re not very familiar with systems programming nor linux development. This is a common problem with vocal ‘rustaceans’, rust is their hammer regardless of the domain.
Although considering rust is prudent, there are still a ton of advantages to using C for systems programming. It is not a binary choice, there are pros and cons, and every project should choose what aligns with their priorities.
No one has ever stated that linux will be in the kernel. It was ‘go ahead and give it a shot’, which includes convincing maintainers to accept your patches. Linus has delegated trust to subsystems maintainers and an established process.
Hellwig could have been more tactful, but like it or not, arguments against a cross-language codebase have merit. Framing it as a ‘clear confession of sabotage of the r4l project’, attempting to weaponize the CoC, and trying to drum up an army via social media was all out of line.
Success was never a given, if they want r4l to succeed then they have to get patches approved and crying wolf ain’t gonna cut it.
Isn’t on of the issues on why they wanted rust is a lack of new blood in the kernel development?
When a maintainer calls somebody’s efforts “cancer” – “spreading this cancer to core subsystems” – and that they’ll do everything they can to halt those efforts – “I will do everything I can do to stop this” – that’s as clear an indication of sabotage as you will ever get.
I don’t know how “whether more rust code should be allowed” is even a question. What, do you think they’re going to just cut all the rust developers off or something? Linus has always been a move slow and don’t break things kinda guy. Why should allowing rust into the kernel suddenly change that now? What is there to even answer?
Well, the rust devs are trying to add more rust code, and the dma maintainer rejected it because it was was written in rust. Thus, the question.
The dma maintainer wants all the code he’s in charge of to be stuff he likes to work with. Whether you agree with that or not, that has absolutely nothing to do with Linus Torvalds allowing more rust code in the kernel.
That’s the thing though, he’s not in charge of this code.
The lone dma maintainer isn’t in charge of the code in the dma subsystem? What do you even mean by that?
He’s not in charge of the rust code they want to merge. They asked him about it because their code talks with the dma system.
They were trying to merge rust code into the dma subsystem, because what they were working on needed to talk to it, and it would be easier to do that with rust code in the dma subsystem. He said no specifically to that part. Just the stuff in the dma subsystem. That’s all. It can be worked around.
It wasn’t actually a big deal until Martin stuck his nose into a discussion that was none of his business and then cried about it on social media. I get being frustrated. The old guys are weirdly hostile sometimes, but creating drama is not the solution.
Sure, I saw that, too. This is Linus saying he won’t play that.
So he won’t answer on-list. He won’t respond to off-list. I don’t blame marcan for getting frustrated.
Yeah, I don’t blame him for being frustrated. I definitely empathize with him here. I don’t know about the culture around committing to the kernal, but maybe it would be better to fork and make the case with action?
Forking the Linux kernel is unlikely to go anywhere.
There is Redox, a Unix-like whole OS implemented in Rust, though I don’t know if being able to run unmodified Linux binaries is one of their goals. It looks like they’re expecting most software to be ported.