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Comment by diath | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered why not just fork Linux and add Rust there then keep it in sync with mainline and maintain it long time to demonstrate that it's a viable strategy and there's enough volunteers willing to actually spend their time instead of turning the Rust part of the kernel into abandonware when there's so few developers available, before trying to get it supported upstream?

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That is exactly what the Rust for Linux project did: they made a branch of Linux, they did enough implementation work to demonstrate the viability, they maintained it for a while, they had a large number of developers (both volunteer and paid) enthusiastically improving it and building upon it, they talked to upstream about getting it added, upstream agreed and merged it, and the Rust for Linux developers along with many others continue to improve it upstream. That's exactly how the process should work.

Right, but my point about long time maintainability still stands, the person in the lead of the Rust project in the kernel already threw in the towel: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240828211117.9422-1-wedsonaf@...

One person involved in the project got tired of the ongoing obnoxious behavior of a few kernel developers (as partially documented in that mail), and decided to move on. That's a sad outcome, and reflects badly on the kernel developers in question. It doesn't reflect a maintainability issue with the Rust for Linux project (which has quite a few developers and many more contributors), except insofar as it continues to be an occupational hazard of participating in the Linux kernel community that you end up dealing with some number of obnoxious people.

Just fork one of the largest open source projects in the world? Linux has many contributors who are paid full time to improve the project. Something that is impossible to match in a sideshow project.

Exactly my point, if that cannot be done as a third party project, then shoehorning Rust into Linux and expecting unpaid third party volunteers to actually maintain it makes no sense. Unless a big corp steps up to fund such efforts, it's pointless.

It's Linus's project.

He wants to allow Rust. If you don't then you fork it into your own project lol ...

Linus has already decided to accept Rust! A fork would simply not be practical. Disagree and commit.

How much of that is the opinion of the corporate masters who fund the Linux Foundation?

Why Rust and not Ada for example? Rust is heavily promoted by web developers who call the shots these days because they bring in the advertising money.

I find it hard to believe that Rust is the end of all other languages, especially given its ugly syntax.

It turns out that Linus has repeatedly shared his personal opinion on these matters, so you can judge for yourself whether he sounds "forced by corporate masters", or whether that's conspiratorial FUD that exists only in your own mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvuEYtkOH88&t=6m07s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM_8UOPFpqE&t=8m30s

He's even given briefly opined that Rust looks much better than the "disaster" of Ada: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2247741/linux-at-25-linus-...

Rust has so much momentum behind it. It's become extremely popular among leading-edge systems and tool developers, for being just the right mix of approachable and geared towards sustainable correctness.

For example, the Jujutsu VCS is written in Rust. Of course it is — it was started in 2020 or so, and no other choice would make sense for software which needs to be fast while not compromising on correctness. And Jujutsu is not written by web developers. It is written by systems developers.

I've also been in private conversations to start a couple of new systems projects to fulfill some currently-unmet needs. Again, of course they would be in Rust; there was never any doubt or serious debate.

This by no means indicates that Rust is the end-all of languages. I hope Rust gets superseded at some point! But if you're making a decision today, right now, about systems projects you want to ship and deliver value with, then Rust it is.

Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvuEYtkOH88&t=17m28s

Linux is not, by and large, maintained by "unpaid volunteers". And big corps are, in fact, funding the Rust for Linux effort.

Nothing is being "shoehorned". The project has the explicit backing of Linus and Greg KH. It's taking a long time because it's not being shoehorned.

I think part of the rustacian movement is to convert others instead of just doing their own thing.

You think wrong.

Some work is already done that way but it's quite expensive to go years without upstreaming. Keeping branches in sync is a lot of work.

There was a lot of money poured into Rust by large companies and they're looking for immediate and tangible impact (this helps to explain a lot of the negative feelings on all sides imo)

Investors aren't going to abide by a long-term experiment with undefined success outcomes.

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