Hector Martin – [Patch] Maintainers: Remove Myself

https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/7/9

by Reventlov • 1 year ago

12 52 1 year ago

talldayo3• 1 year ago

Another for the pile of reverse-engineered devicetrees that started downstream, tried to negotiate with upstream and ended up realizing the futility of it all. Godspeed, may your path to depreciation be slow and painless.

gigatexal3• 1 year ago

I hope they keep up the good fight …

talldayo3• 1 year ago

The good fight was already lost when Apple didn't lift a finger to help. No documentation, no driver code, just an open-enough iBoot interface to flash some code onto. Valiant programmers can take a hack like that pretty far, but at some point they have to ask what they're fighting for. Is Asahi interested in adapting to the norms of the Linux kernel, or do they insist on bending the Linux kernel to meet them?

I understand their exhaustion, but aiming their frustrations at Linus for having an entirely level-headed response shows that they can't read the room. This is the Linux project, you're going to have problems merging enormous codebases that reverse-engineer poorly understood hardware. I support Rust in the Linux kernel, but this is the kind of envoy that will spoil the effort.

vsgherzi5• 1 year ago

It is what it is... However if you want volunteers to contribute to the kernel and introduce rust as a way to get more people to join this looks pretty bad... I'm sure stuff will figure itself out in the long run it's just sad that the discourse exists at all. I guess the linux kernel will never transition to memory safety via a new language? Idk what else can be done.

uecker13• 1 year ago

Well, I very much hope that the Linux kernel will never transition to Rust. The language is far too complex for my taste. IMHO Rust people should just build their own kernels and if those are better they can replace Linux just like the C++ microkernels did.

vsgherzi5• 1 year ago

The complaints I have with rust are going to be on the async side. We need memory safety in the kernel, it dosen't have to be majority but having vital parts in rust could be a game changer. The kernel must evolve, all players are moving this way. Swift is being introduced into Darwin, Rust into Windows. Memory safety is not a fad and the only tangible options right now is rust. Swift could be interesting but creates other problems, zig is not 100% safe, and carbon is vapor ware. Could there be something better than rust? Yes. Do I think rust can be annoying at times? Absolutely... But the way I look at it, we don't have another shot.

uecker13• 1 year ago

Some background:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/Z6OzgBYZNJPr_ZD1@phenom.ffwll.lo...

https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=wi=ZmP2=TmHsFSUGq8vUZAOWWS...

phendrenad23• 1 year ago

This whole thing is, at it's core, an architectural question. It's quite simple: How much should the C code have to change to allow better Rust support?

Despite his position as "Benevolent dictator for life", Linus doesn't really have the chutzpah to stand up and say "we're doing it this way"[1], so these sorts of questions try to get resolved through petty bickering and namecalling instead (which is the opposite of consensus-building and healthy debate and just makes people more entrenched and unwilling to compromise).

[1] - He was already ousted from the project once, I don't think he wants to try it again.

steveklabnik12• 1 year ago

That question as already answered when the experiment was greenlit: it doesn’t have to at all.

That question is also not what is at the heart of this conflict. It’s someone that categorically rejects the experiment, even though the project has decided to give it a try. It’s entirely social and not technical.

uecker13• 1 year ago

I don't think this is a fair characterization. I think the accusations from the Rust side that the project is "sabotaged" or "non-technical arguments" etc. are a typical symptom of denial. All the hype and enthusiasm related to Rust is that you can just write something easily in C instead of Rust (or rewrite) and then all problems related to safety are solved. And some of those people really believe this nonsense. The real world complexities unsurprisingly do not go away simply by using Rust. The signs are all over: The project is moving very slowly, the very enthusiastic people who move it along with sheer will power get burned out, there also CVEs in Rust code, etc. But if you bought all the Rust arguments and are now invested, it is difficult to accept that the solution of the safety problems is not as simple "rewrite to Rust". So the more immature part of the Rust communities starts to blame politics. Now, I do not want to say that there are not grains of truth in all these points (I do think memory safety is great, I do think that C ecosystem has issues, I agree that there are many good ideas in Rust, and certainly skepticism from others makes it harder to push something forward in a community, etc.), but overall I think it is mostly delusional ideas from Rust folks encountering the real world, and instead of critical self-reflection on what needs to improved both in terms of social aspects of collaboration and maybe also on the technical side, they blame others for sabotaging the project and organize a social media circus to force their ideas on a community (which of course, is super toxic and evil)

menaerus5• 1 year ago

The reason is entirely technical and I think it has been formulated clearly - maintaining cross-language codebase, or one of the most important kernel modules FWIW in this case, certainly does not make things simpler but only more complex - communication-wise, time-wise, resource-wise, uncertainty-wise etc. I think this is pretty clear and not really debatable IMO.

The actual question is if that overhead is worth it and it seems that there is no clear answer on that question despite many Rust-force claiming otherwise. I can totally understand the position of kernel maintainers.

What I cannot understand is the following shameful, almost unbelievable, act from Hector Martin

If shaming on social media does not work, then tell me what does, because I'm out of ideas.

If there's a single most reason why Rust-in-Linux will fail it is going to be because of the immaturity and entitlement of individuals in Rust community.

phendrenad23• 1 year ago

That question as already answered when the experiment was greenlit: it doesn’t have to at all

Where? And in light of the ongoing infighting and lack of clear parameters, do you think that was truly sufficient?

pulsartwin5• 1 year ago

This is a remarkably disappointing end to Hellwig's original NACK, yet entirely expected based on the recent treatment of R4L devs.

Hector Martin – [Patch] Maintainers: Remove Myself

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