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One Of The Rust Linux Kernel Maintainers Steps Down - Cites "Nontechnical Nonsense" (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Wedson Almeida Filho is a Microsoft engineer who has been prolific in his contributions to the Rust for the Linux kernel code over the past several years. Wedson has worked on many Rust Linux kernel features and even did a experimental EXT2 file-system driver port to Rust. But he's had enough and is now stepping away from the Rust for Linux efforts.

From Wedon's post on the kernel mailing list:

I am retiring from the project. After almost 4 years, I find myself lacking the energy and enthusiasm I once had to respond to some of the nontechnical nonsense, so it's best to leave it up to those who still have it in them.

...

I truly believe the future of kernels is with memory-safe languages. I am no visionary but if Linux doesn't internalize this, I'm afraid some other kernel will do to it what it did to Unix.

Lastly, I'll leave a small, 3min 30s, sample for context here: https://youtu.be/WiPp9YEBV0Q?t=1529 -- and to reiterate, no one is trying force anyone else to learn Rust nor prevent refactorings of C code."

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I think most people would agree with you, but that isn't really the issue. Rather the question is where the threshold for rewriting in Rust vs maintaining in C lies. Rewriting in any language is costly and error-prone, so at what point do the benefits outweigh that cost and risk? For a legacy, battle-tested codebase (possibly one of the most widely tested codebases out there), the benefit is probably on the lower side.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Seeing as how 40% of the security issues that have been found over the years wouldn't exist in a memory-safe language, I would say a re-write is extremely worth it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

If the timeline is long enough then it's always worth the refactor.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that exactly the strawman the maintainer got tired of?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmm... I admit I didn't follow the video and who was speaking very well and didn't notice hostility that others seem to pick up on. I've worked with plenty of people who turn childish when a technical discussion doesn't go their way, and I've had the luxury of mostly ignoring them, I guess.

It sounded like he was asking for deeper specification than others were willing or able to provide. That's a constant stalemate in software development. He's right to push for better specs, but if there aren't any then they have to work with what they've got.

My first response here was responding to the direct comparison of languages, which is kind of apples and oranges in this context, and I guess the languages involved aren't even really the issue.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Part of the hostility was the other maintainer misunderstanding the presenter, going on a diatribe about how the kernel Rust maintainers are going to force the C code to become unrefactorable and stagnate, and rudely interrupting the presenter with another tangent whenever he (the presenter) tried to clarify anything.

An unpleasant mix of DM railroading and gish galloping, essentially.

~~I wouldn't quite call it a strawman, but~~ the guy was clearly not engaging in good faith. He made up hypothetical scenarios that nobody asked about, and then denigrated Rust by attacking the scenarios he came up with.

Edit: I was thinking of the wrong fallacy. It is a strawman, yes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

He made up hypothetical scenarios that nobody asked about, and then denigrated Rust by attacking the scenarios he came up with.

This seems to be the textbook description of a strawman argument.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Wait, yeah. I was thinking of ad hominem when i wrote that, sorry. Correct, that is a strawman.