I’m not placing blame on the Linux Foundation, Linus, or anyone else for that matter. However, I believe that if Linus has publicly endorsed the use of Rust in the kernel, that decision is already largely set in motion. On the other hand, if the community collectively opposes the integration of Rust with C and no action is taken to address these problems, and everyone say no, then there is little to no reason to make the initial statement.
Much of the work being produced by Rust developers seems to struggle, often because it’s not made in C and because of maintainers saying “No I don’t want any rust code near my C code”.
I recognize that there are various technical factors influencing this decision, but ultimately it was the creator’s choice to support it.
Isn’t it reasonable for a maintainer to say “no rust here” when they don’t know rust, don’t want to learn it, and have decades of experience in C, and are maintaining that part of the system
The project has said it is a goal to move to a dual language model. So, no, it is not reasonable.
What would be reasonable would be technical arguments or pragmatic logistical concerns with the goal of finding solutions. What would be reasonable would be asking for and accepting help.
None of the reasonable stuff is happening. So, it not reasonable.
It’s also his legitimate choice to wait. He can’t see the best way forward and is deciding to wait on his decission or let the community decide instead of him. As much as we like to think of him as autocrat in some way, he respects people that work on kernel and he respects their time. The smartest move is often to wait on a decision. And even if it’s not a smartest move in this case, it can still be better than making a wrong decission that will demoralize the community even more.
I’m not placing blame on the Linux Foundation, Linus, or anyone else for that matter. However, I believe that if Linus has publicly endorsed the use of Rust in the kernel, that decision is already largely set in motion. On the other hand, if the community collectively opposes the integration of Rust with C and no action is taken to address these problems, and everyone say no, then there is little to no reason to make the initial statement.
Much of the work being produced by Rust developers seems to struggle, often because it’s not made in C and because of maintainers saying “No I don’t want any rust code near my C code”.
I recognize that there are various technical factors influencing this decision, but ultimately it was the creator’s choice to support it.
Isn’t it reasonable for a maintainer to say “no rust here” when they don’t know rust, don’t want to learn it, and have decades of experience in C, and are maintaining that part of the system
The project has said it is a goal to move to a dual language model. So, no, it is not reasonable.
What would be reasonable would be technical arguments or pragmatic logistical concerns with the goal of finding solutions. What would be reasonable would be asking for and accepting help.
None of the reasonable stuff is happening. So, it not reasonable.
Yes.
But that’s not what’s happening here. The guy who said no is not the maintainer of the rust code, and is not expected to touch the rust code at all.
It’s also his legitimate choice to wait. He can’t see the best way forward and is deciding to wait on his decission or let the community decide instead of him. As much as we like to think of him as autocrat in some way, he respects people that work on kernel and he respects their time. The smartest move is often to wait on a decision. And even if it’s not a smartest move in this case, it can still be better than making a wrong decission that will demoralize the community even more.