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.

[–] aspensmonster@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[–] h4x0r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] aspensmonster@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 0 points 8 months ago

Isn't on of the issues on why they wanted rust is a lack of new blood in the kernel development?

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sure, I saw that, too. This is Linus saying he won't play that.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So he won't answer on-list. He won't respond to off-list. I don't blame marcan for getting frustrated.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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?

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago

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.