Following arguments on the Linux kernel mailing list the past few days over some Linux kernel maintainers being against the notion of Rust code in the mainline Linux kernel and trying to avoid it and very passionate views over the Linux kernel development process, Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin has removed himself from being an upstream maintainer of the ARM Apple code.
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The anti Rust bullshit is gonna kill Linux’s growth.
it seemed like the innocent(ish) holy wars of the past like emacs vs vi; but it’s taken on a whole new destructive trajectory of its own and the old guard would rather see Linux ossify into irrelevancy rather than letting the next generation take over.
it reminds me of an old quote from a general to the effect of: if 5 americans survive a nuclear war and 4 russian survive; then we’ve won and it was worth it.
either that or it’s like the technological equivalent of the the democratic leadership w disaffected democratic voters leading to defeat in this last election or an elderly driver whose grown children are trying to take away their keys before things get worse; all are refusing to acknowledge the writing on the wall because they think they still got it, but they don’t.
Unless those old farts die first
It’s really a bummer seeing how much childish drama is in the Linux dev community.
I am not nearly a good enough dev to contribute to the Linux kernel, but I am working my way towards that point currently at night after my kids are in bed. Be the change and what not.
That’s a good way to take a bad situation and make it better. Good luck! Maybe I’ll join you one day.
There is a reason the type of devs who have the talent, passion and time for projects like this are not spending 60hrs/wk at Google.
Damn, Linus really went out of his way to say:
How about you accept the fact that maybe the problem is you. You think you know better. But the current process works. It has problems, but problems are a fact of life. There is no perfect. However, I will say that the social media brigading just makes me not want to have anything at all to do with your approach. Because if we have issues in the kernel development model, then social media sure as hell isn’t the solution. The same way it sure as hell wasn’t the solution to politics. Technical patches and discussions matter. Social media brigading - no than\k you.
…but still fails to answer the question of “should we continue implementing kernel things in rust”.
Yes I read the whole thread and the lack of replies on his part were kind of infuriating
Marcan calls Torvalds for arbitration ; Torvalds delivers heated-up scolding instead ; Linux looses talent.
Torvalds sure is shit at managing humans
I assume being the extreme level coder dev types that program logic all day start seeing life has black and white, and generally humans are not like that.
Unsurprising. You don’t have to follow Hector Martin on social media for very long to learn that he’s a petulant, indignant, self-righteous drama queen.
It seems a lot of new developers want to do some things differently; old guard devs can either make some compromises, or accept that fewer new devs will want to be part of upstream.
Rust seems to be imperative for security. I hope people in the Linux kernel community put aside their differences and find common ground for the benefit of everyone.
From my perspective as an outsider, there is a lot of apparent hostility and seemingly bad faith engagements going on in this space. Hopefully the reasons are innocuous like them just not wanting to learn a new language, to avoid increasing their workload, or to simply avoid working with the Rust team for whatever reasons they might have.
I would argue that anybody standing in the way of progress and increased security should be moved out of the way. No need for shaming or deep dives, just move the ship forward.
Hector posting it to social media, and by his own admission, to shame the C devs, is pretty hostile and bad faith too. Imo it’s the most overt occurrence of hostility here, but no one seems to mind? Are people just completely numb to social media hostilities or smth?
Social media is virtual town hall and a place for many to vent and deal with their emotions - not everybody is perfect and uses the internet the way you approve of. It’s truly no different in essence than the LKML or other public-facing communication platforms - it just has more voices and more free engagement. We can be big people who express ourselves any way we’d like as long as we respect others the way we’d like to be respected.
I don’t advocate for shaming because I wouldn’t want it done to me, but I don’t see Hector acting in bad faith, and their actions are questionably hostile because Hector clearly wavered in their approach. They are under a lot of stress and are obviously motivated by the feelings of the other R4L maintainers and their issues - Hector’s good faith and empathy is plain to see. They are very upset that others are being disrespected, that their work is being unnecessarily questioned, and that their efforts overall are likened to a “cancer” while people openly stand in their way.
Did Hector disrespect the maintainer in question? Did Hector call people to action in order to shame the maintainer in question? Their initial intention did matter, of course, and I was not able to read the drama in question on social media because it appears to be removed. Hector certainly wanted the maintainer removed, which I don’t personally agree is ideal or fair, but it’s not their decision and it’s not social media’s decision.
On the flip-side in this instance, I similarly see somebody who brings up valid issues with splitting the codebase accompanied by a lot of emotions spilling out (like seeing Rust as a cancer, and vowing to stop it from spreading in the codebase further), but I personally fail to see how that is their problem if the code isn’t going to involve them. It’s up to Linus and the larger LKML community to discuss the form in which Rust will take in the Linux kernel.
Clearly a discussion that could be had with Hector included, but there is a lot of hostility towards larger public focus coming from Linus, and he effectively shut the discussion down and accused Hector of being the problem. There certainly are problems all around, from my perspective, but all of that could’ve been resolved, and still can.
The crucial point is that the people who can work on the kernel now itself are
- c people who don’t know rust yet
- c people who know rust well
The moment we get rust in there, the people who can work on the kernel reliably as a whole are
- c people who know rust well
That’s a much smaller group than the one above.
Here’s the point: THE SAME ISSUE would arise if it were D, or some kind of compiled python, object-oriented bash static objects, if that existed; or anything. Whatever the other language was, it’d present the same risk.
Rust people: it’s not about you. It’s about splitting the codebase.
I always thought kernel devs were smart people. I’m kind of shocked learning a new language is this big of a barrier to them.
The rust people said they’d take ownership of the work for the bindings so C maintainers don’t have to. What’s the issue?
Agreed, especially as the proprietary alternatives are starting to incorporate more and more Rust, even Windows is starting to rewrite their core libraries in Rust.
On top of security though, its going to be important for continuing to bring new maintainers onboard. Less and less people are learning C, especially to a level proficient enough to be a kernel maintainer. As Rust matures even more, C is effectively a legacy language at this point, a C++ won’t be too far behind either, and Linux is going to be hard pressed to find maintainers as the graybeards retire.
That’s a shame irrespective of the drama. Asahi is surprisingly good. Installation is (relatively) straightforward.
I’ve got it on my primary laptop. I don’t use it frequently because battery life is poor compared to MacOS and I can’t use an external display but it’s an impressive achievement and I’m sure it will only get better. I haven’t used fedora in 20 years but it’s slick and easy and most of it just works. It looks just like my Linux workstation desktop.
- Gayhitler ( @Gayhitler@lemmy.ml ) English9•1 month ago
I wish rust ppl would listen to the maintainers of the 30+ year old c project.
They have decades of experience maintaining and patching contributions made by people who are no longer active and the small request that those contributions be in the language of the project isn’t something to fight against.
It’s really a bummer when skilled developers fall back on stuff like “if shaming on social media doesn’t work, what am I supposed to do?”
Dunno man, when what the dev of 30+ years said was more or less “fuck off”, it seems that advice was in fact heeded
- Gayhitler ( @Gayhitler@lemmy.ml ) English2•1 month ago
The system works
the small request that those contributions be in the language of the project isn’t something to fight against.
When the contributions not in C are explicitly approved by the project owner, it seems that the 30+ year maintainers shouldn’t try to blockade any progress from actually happening. Working multi-language projects isn’t that much of a nightmare, if code governance and boundaries are well-defined and enforced.
Definitely a case of “everyone sucks here”. The maintainer being a dick and sabotaging R4L without technical justification and Hector putting it on blast.
What sort of advise are they giving? I’m out of the loop
- Gayhitler ( @Gayhitler@lemmy.ml ) English8•1 month ago
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250108122825.136021-1-abdiel.janulgue@gmail.com/
Here’s the whole thread if you wanna read for yourself.
My take away is that rust people are generally fine and try to abide by the norms of the kernel development process but Martin acts like a jerk and it would be okay if he didn’t come back.
See the comment far, far down in the thread implying that he’s somehow a more serious commenter or developer because he’s funded by donations as opposed to a company.
Well shit
I’m not too new to linux, but also not too veteran, has it always has this shit drama? There is always some sort of fucking child throwing a tantrum about some shit. Has it always been the case? It’s really getting annoying.
- Gayhitler ( @Gayhitler@lemmy.ml ) English14•1 month ago
It has always been like this.
Man, this is so unfortunate :/
FOSS land is always going to be populated by freaks and geeks. The well socialized devs get jobs at Google. It’s impressive the “system” works as well as it does, IMO. Passion is a big motivator.
This kind of stuff happens in big companies too, but you don’t see it because it’s not in a public mailing list. One of my teams had a developer who stood on tables to yell until his opinion was accepted, and one time when another developer wouldn’t back down, he threw a chair at them. That angry developer worked there for another 7 years until retirement, while many smart team members around him quit rather than continue dealing with him.
😂. I’d beat the shit out of the mother fucker. I get that he’s a smart developer, but you don’t fucking throw a chair at me, bitch.
Linus needs to step back again. He’s a liability to the kernel’s long term sustainability.
nope, Tim Cook should step down
how long until linus intervenes and tells rust haters to shut the fuck up?