- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- linux@lemmy.ml
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.
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can someone fill me in with a tldr of what’s going on lately? I know there’s some contention in the Linux community about rust, I’ve seen it mentioned here and there, but what’s the actual story with all this.
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” ?
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?
Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m very pleased to see Linus talking like this. I wish more of my relationships both professional and personal could operate with this level of straightforwardness.
Have… Had you not heard any Linus rant before this? This is pretty tame.
Precisely my point.
If anyone spoke to me like that at work, I would quit. Which is exactly what has happened.
Nobody in that thread quit because of the way Linus talked. If was because of the way they were talking to each other.
Really? I feel the opposite. I thought Linus was very clear in calling out this maintainer’s bs, and I’d think it’s fair if I’m in the receiving end. I did something unprofessional: essentially tried sabotaging others while hiding behind a lie, that I “don’t care” about something while actually hating it.
Getting called out is not the end of a work relationship. We’re all flawed, and we might not notice our own problems and think we’re doing fine, and such callouts are good for our own development, both as a person and professionally.
But if you’re thin-skinned and think you’re better than others and so you won’t take criticisms from others, welp, can’t help ya there. I’d suggest therapy though.
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I feel like you’re building the argument in a way that’s convenient for yourself there.
A non-hostile work environment doesn’t mean you won’t get reprimanded, especially when you go out of your way to sabotage somebody. Someone has to step in to stop the madness, and if all they do is to say stop (which I heard Linus did earlier), that’s not actually going to stop the conflict because nobody understands or acknowledges where the root of the conflict comes from.
And Linus is not even hostile here imo. There’s a lot of “you” language, but none of it was personal, and he’s not doing his old thing where he tells others to go end themselves. He seemed analytical and dissected the root of the issue so that people understand where things are actually coming from.
And no, I am by no means asking people to make that choice. I am simply suggesting that if all you do is surround yourselves with people who will never get mad at you for doing the wrong things, and that you will never accept anyone reprimanding you, then you’ve made a bad choice in life.
And yeah, “thin skinned” is subjective, and I’m not saying that it’s wrong to be thin-skinned. Some people have less capacity to take criticisms for various reasons, and that’s fine. If your colleagues don’t know how to mince their words (and let’s assume the intentions are good here), and you don’t have the right mental capacity to slice through those words yourself, then you can’t work effectively together. If the people you have to work closely with are all such clumsy people (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just unrefined), then there’s a problem, and it’s probably best that you don’t work with them or there at all, cause it’d only lead to chaos. If this is where you think I’m asking people to make the choice between livelihood and mental well-being, first off, I think this is an exaggeration because there’s almost always someplace else you can work at, and if you can’t, then there’s a bigger problem, and two, well, I think you’re idealizing the workplace a little too much. Sure, in an ideal world where people can immediately assume a professional and cordial personality at work, then you shouldn’t have to make the choice between livelihood and mental well-being. But people are imperfect. There are hostile work environments. There are non-hostile work environments with some hostile people. You can enforce policies that dictate how people should conduct themselves, but you can’t stop it from happening, and you can’t stop them fast enough.
So people do have to make that choice, even if they don’t want to, and even if we think it shouldn’t be a choice and that people should just have both.
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