Why? Most of these "existing software" are tried and tested tools that have stood the test of time. Why rewrite them and introduce potential bugs? Write something new!
Rewriting in a memory-safe language is worth it. But it shouldn't be a religion, I completely agree on that.
Even if Rust was invented in the 80's, and such a project was in it, the same could happen in one of those unsafe{} blocks a Rust project like this might need to use (and we are forgetting all the ordinary bugs even in the safe portions of the code).
Sure, being in C might be a part of the problem, and this is a good space for tools like Rust to occupy more space, but there's a bigger picture or else Linux would be breaking all the time, and its a solid, big and complex piece of software that works pretty well because there's a lot of economical incentives to keep it going.
There probably is a Wikipedia page describing this phenomena but I'll settle for calling it "the commodity effect": when something is very widely used then everybody assumes it has been improved to perfection and that it has no flaws (this is not exclusive to software engineering, it happens in many areas of life).
> the same could happen in one of those unsafe{} blocks a Rust project like this might need to use
Sure but they are much easier to search for and audit (like with e.g. `cargo-geiger`). That by itself is a win. Whereas C/C++ needs a special class of linters and scanners, a good chunk of which are paid (a deal-breaker for many software devs not because they're poor but because they don't want to pay for them out of their pocket, and their employer is blind to see the added value and buy those tools for them).
> and we are forgetting all the ordinary bugs even in the safe portions of the code
Only people with agenda forget about those. I worked with Rust in 3 companies in total so far and I've only seen serious, diligent, hard-working devs with attention to detail and a slight case of efficiency mania. :) And they were very mindful of potential bugs and we wrote a lot of tests of different kinds like acceptance/integration, unit, property, and probably others.
No normal smart developer forgets that memory safety bugs are just one class of all the bugs. Turns out however that those are the most widespread bugs in general so IMO it is sensible to use a language that eliminates them by the mere virtue of compiling your program -- and not using unsafe{} in certain ways.
As another poster said, time and attention are limited resources. By removing memory safety bugs from the picture our brains are now free to pay proper attention to the more subtle bugs.
> or else Linux would be breaking all the time, and its a solid, big and complex piece of software that works pretty well because there's a lot of economical incentives to keep it going.
It is solid... as far as we know. Truth is, nobody is fuzzing the Linux kernel 24/7 except maybe the worst possible actors like national intelligence agencies or malevolent hacking groups -- and they of course would never share and help fix a zero-day because it can help them make money by exfiltrating sensitive information and/or breaking in protected networks.
Don't get me wrong, I admire the Linux kernel devs. They are a standing tribute to all ideas of free and open source and open project management. But Linus himself said security isn't the first priority of the kernel which already means that certain potential problems in the code are being overlooked in favor of speed and stability.
(There was a story some weeks ago on HN showing that there was a pretty nasty exploitable bug in the Linux kernel but I lost the link.)
1. Rust is new and cool and I want to be a Rust developer.
2. There are almost no Rust jobs out there.
3. I don't have original ideas or any actual use cases for this language.
4. So I will rewrite something that already exists in it.
Does anybody miss Sendmail? That had also "stood the test of time".
The idea is that language will not solve poorly designed software, but a developer that knows what he is doing like Wietse did with Postix. And Postfix stood the test of time pretty well, considering how complex it is.
Another idea is that a software can have a great design but still be full of security holes. C allows for that.
If we leave it to the "adequately advanced programmer" to avoid those, we're doing it wrong - with plenty of historical examples to prove this.
The only thing that will actually prevent security holes is attentive software engineers deliberately choosing to learn tools and practice habits to avoid security holes by design. The professional judgement of a lot of those engineers is leading them to choose to learn rust right now.
Absolutely. It's just that statistically the memory safety bugs have been the dominant percent of all the bugs, so rewriting core tools in a memory-safe language does make sense.
Time & attention are limited resources. By eliminating the dominant class of bugs you have more time and attention for more subtle bugs.
Beautifully articulated.
No. But it will make sure there are no issues of the type buffer overflow and such.
The rest, we can judge when the software is delivered.
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-1902...
I'm not so sure....
And those are bugs from from people writing core stuff, like you know, the people who should know Rust better than you and me. People writing foundational code that your program will run on top of.
Of special danger is the last CVE, that was rushed and backported into the last release. But nobody talks about it. I can imagine why.
I can bet that the "but the bug happened within unsafe code" excuse will be the next Rust meme.