- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- linux@programming.dev
Hellwig is the maintainer of the DMA subsystem. Hellwig previously blocked rust bindings for DMA code, which in part resulted in Hector Martin from stepping down as a kernel maintainer and eventually Asahi Linux as a whole.
Not everyone wants Rust in the kernel. Some don’t want it because mixing programming languages increases complexity, while other simply don’t like Rust. Hellwig says he’s the former.
As the DMA maintainer, he said he would block Rust for that reason. So the effort of upstreaming Rust for Linux stalled. There was uproar in the Rust community, and notably, Asahi Linux leader Hector Martin stepped in, complained about the maintainer on social media, calling for him to be removed.
Linus did not like Hector Martin doing this, so he yelled at him on the mailing list. Hector Martin decided to step down from upstreaming work to the kernel because of this. And later he stepped away from Asahi Linux as a whole for various other reasons.
Now Linus is making it clear that he will merge Rust for Linux work whether other Linux maintainers like it or not.
Thanks for the thorough explanation!
I’m ambivalent about Rust, I see it mentioned a lot but I’ve never really dug into it to see why it’s so lauded. Is there any particular reason why the pro-rust community don’t simply fork the Linux kernel to have a “Rust-Nix” ?
It would be a bummer if there was a second Linux project that diverged. We all profit from safer implementations, it’s much better to keep them upstream.
Forking is not an easy thing to do. It’s difficult to keep up with the pace of upstream with a project as large as Linux. When Linux makes a breaking change, then the downstream kernel will need to fix things.
Forks do exist. Asahi Linux ships a fork that includes lots of Rust stuff that hasn’t been upstreamed. It would be a significantly worse experience if you didn’t run their kernel fork, if it would even run at all. Notably, Google also uses Rust in the Android kernel. They sponsor the Rust for Linux project.
And in truth, most forks do not matter. Hard forking would certainly allow them to get Rust stuff in faster, but how much does that matter if no one is using the fork and the fork slowly becomes more and more incompatible with upstream Linux?
At some point, projects just become too big to fork. But it’s still talked about as the be all, end all of dealing with open source disputes. Rather than people actually just having reasonable and meaningful discussions.