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The Rust for Linux politics mess should be laid squarely at Linus' feet. He's the BDFL. He approved adding Rust to Linux, and he massively failed at communicati

The Rust for Linux politics mess should be laid squarely at Linus' feet. He's the BDFL. He approved adding Rust to Linux, and he massively failed at communicating what that even meant. If he wants Rust in the kernel, he needs to kick some maintainers in the ass and get everyone aligned.

timewizard 2y ago
And if he doesn't want it in the kernel?
- rcxdude 2y ago
  He needs to say so before wasting everyone's time
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    I remember seeing an interview where Linus said that at one time, he rejected a contribution and felt bad because he wasn't clear enough in that he didn't wanted that. He said he now tries to be very clear about what he doesn't want. So I guess he is ok with how things are going, otherwise, we would be likely to see another of his famous rants.
  - jcarrano 2y ago
    Exactly. The recent DRM issue was about who's time would be wasted. Rust is either happening, and they are wasting time by not having proper bindings, or it is not, and all the drivers written were a waste of time. In either case, the discussions around it are already a waste of time.
- arlort 2y ago
  I don't know enough to agree or disagree with the person you're replying to. But I assume the logic would be that if Linus doesn't approve then he should have shut the discussion down long ago or at least do it now without half measures
  - timewizard 2y ago
    > then he should have shut the discussion down long ago It's interesting that people expect Linus to simultaneously chill out and be more inclusive while at the same time acting like a dictator over the entirety of the project. In any case, perhaps it's worthwhile to remember where it started, and what the attitudes were at the time [1]. It was an experiment. Experiments sometimes fail or reveal themselves to not lead anywhere useful. The choices were to let that experiment happen on the actual kernel or force the rust people to fork some version of the kernel and instantly be left behind. It clearly wasn't an easy choice and I can only imagine the uproar from the rust community if he then did what you suggest today. So, that leaves us with the question, what if he's decided it's no longer worth it? What then should we do with a mostly failed kernel experiment? [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-on-where-rust-will-fit-into-linux/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-on-where-rust-w...
    - arlort 2y ago
      > It's interesting that people expect Linus to simultaneously chill out and be more inclusive while at the same time acting like a dictator over the entirety of the project. It's not particularly interesting that different people have different expectations on different issues
      - timewizard 2y ago
        It's interesting that you moved the goalposts to an entirely different point. I'm clearly talking about the overall "community," which whether you care about it or not, has been used as a point to successfully force Linus' hand before. In other words, there are clearly politics involved, so perhaps that should be taken into consideration before making a blithe point about a complex human organizational issue?
    - okanat 2y ago
      You can be decisive and inclusive without being a prick who is personally targeting developers and publicly demeaning. Linus was like that. No sane developer wants that. A true inclusive environment also requires leaders to tell rowdy maintainers calling people "cancer" to know their place and watch their tone. It is not really a good experiment in technical qualification nor in developer collaboration, if the leadership lets individuals to constantly blockade work, isn't it?
- bastardoperator 2y ago
  fork, runix? (/s?)
wavemode 2y ago
To play (BDFL's) advocate - Linux is an -enornous- project. It's not physically possible for any effort to be unilaterally directed. Linus does not personally maintain the whole thing, it's just not possible. So he has maintainers under him who are in charge of the subsystems - the implication being that he trusts their judgment and technical expertise. There's no other way the system could work, really. Linus's position, as far as I've heard and ascertained, is that introducing any language into the kernel is going to require case-by-case and subsystem-by-subsystem analyses. He's not going to reject the language wholesale, but at the same time it's impossible for him to wholesale mandate its adoption. "Kicking maintainers in the ass" sounds great but nothing is ever that simple.
- godelski 2y ago
  I think this is an important point. People believe "dictator" means "complete control" when instead "dictator" mean "authority to make any decision." The difference is exactly what you say, that you still have to rely on the hierarchical structure and trust that your "underlings" are making the right decisions. Complete control doesn't scale very well and even a small project or team has many moving parts and the only way to have full control is to be involved in every part. With scale, rapidly comes the necessity for trust. There's only so much time in a day, and only so much can be done in an hour. Damned physics, always getting in the way.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
Why do you assume he either wants it or doesn't want it? The only way I ever interpreted his actions so far is he's willing to allow those who want to try. And I see nothing unreasonable and no failure in that. It is a hashing out process, in process.
- perching_aix 2y ago
  "If he wants" != "he wants" "He approved" != "He wants"
jcarrano 2y ago
Either he failed at communicating, or he does not care. Reading the recent thread/flamewar on R4L and DRM I wonder if he was somewhat pressured to accept Rust but does not actually care. If you were the leader of a project and explicitly authorized a sub-project, would you tolerate a maintainer undermining it?
- dralley 2y ago
  FWIW, there are plenty of backchannels through which discussions about this stuff can be had that aren't the public mailing list. My limited understanding is that those discussions have in fact taken place and the R4L people aren't concerned about things working out eventually. However, I do wish he would say something publicly, so that the internet peanut gallery doesn't fill the void with negativity. It doesn't exactly help attract more interest in the project.

timewizard 2y ago

And if he doesn't want it in the kernel?

rcxdude 2y ago
He needs to say so before wasting everyone's time
- GuB-42 2y ago
  I remember seeing an interview where Linus said that at one time, he rejected a contribution and felt bad because he wasn't clear enough in that he didn't wanted that. He said he now tries to be very clear about what he doesn't want. So I guess he is ok with how things are going, otherwise, we would be likely to see another of his famous rants.
- jcarrano 2y ago
  Exactly. The recent DRM issue was about who's time would be wasted. Rust is either happening, and they are wasting time by not having proper bindings, or it is not, and all the drivers written were a waste of time. In either case, the discussions around it are already a waste of time.
arlort 2y ago
I don't know enough to agree or disagree with the person you're replying to. But I assume the logic would be that if Linus doesn't approve then he should have shut the discussion down long ago or at least do it now without half measures
- timewizard 2y ago
  > then he should have shut the discussion down long ago It's interesting that people expect Linus to simultaneously chill out and be more inclusive while at the same time acting like a dictator over the entirety of the project. In any case, perhaps it's worthwhile to remember where it started, and what the attitudes were at the time [1]. It was an experiment. Experiments sometimes fail or reveal themselves to not lead anywhere useful. The choices were to let that experiment happen on the actual kernel or force the rust people to fork some version of the kernel and instantly be left behind. It clearly wasn't an easy choice and I can only imagine the uproar from the rust community if he then did what you suggest today. So, that leaves us with the question, what if he's decided it's no longer worth it? What then should we do with a mostly failed kernel experiment? [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-on-where-rust-will-fit-into-linux/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-on-where-rust-w...
  - arlort 2y ago
    > It's interesting that people expect Linus to simultaneously chill out and be more inclusive while at the same time acting like a dictator over the entirety of the project. It's not particularly interesting that different people have different expectations on different issues
    - timewizard 2y ago
      It's interesting that you moved the goalposts to an entirely different point. I'm clearly talking about the overall "community," which whether you care about it or not, has been used as a point to successfully force Linus' hand before. In other words, there are clearly politics involved, so perhaps that should be taken into consideration before making a blithe point about a complex human organizational issue?
  - okanat 2y ago
    You can be decisive and inclusive without being a prick who is personally targeting developers and publicly demeaning. Linus was like that. No sane developer wants that. A true inclusive environment also requires leaders to tell rowdy maintainers calling people "cancer" to know their place and watch their tone. It is not really a good experiment in technical qualification nor in developer collaboration, if the leadership lets individuals to constantly blockade work, isn't it?
bastardoperator 2y ago
fork, runix? (/s?)

wavemode 2y ago

To play (BDFL's) advocate - Linux is an -enornous- project. It's not physically possible for any effort to be unilaterally directed. Linus does not personally maintain the whole thing, it's just not possible. So he has maintainers under him who are in charge of the subsystems - the implication being that he trusts their judgment and technical expertise. There's no other way the system could work, really. Linus's position, as far as I've heard and ascertained, is that introducing any language into the kernel is going to require case-by-case and subsystem-by-subsystem analyses. He's not going to reject the language wholesale, but at the same time it's impossible for him to wholesale mandate its adoption. "Kicking maintainers in the ass" sounds great but nothing is ever that simple.

godelski 2y ago
I think this is an important point. People believe "dictator" means "complete control" when instead "dictator" mean "authority to make any decision." The difference is exactly what you say, that you still have to rely on the hierarchical structure and trust that your "underlings" are making the right decisions. Complete control doesn't scale very well and even a small project or team has many moving parts and the only way to have full control is to be involved in every part. With scale, rapidly comes the necessity for trust. There's only so much time in a day, and only so much can be done in an hour. Damned physics, always getting in the way.

Brian_K_White 2y ago

Why do you assume he either wants it or doesn't want it? The only way I ever interpreted his actions so far is he's willing to allow those who want to try. And I see nothing unreasonable and no failure in that. It is a hashing out process, in process.

perching_aix 2y ago
"If he wants" != "he wants" "He approved" != "He wants"

jcarrano 2y ago

Either he failed at communicating, or he does not care. Reading the recent thread/flamewar on R4L and DRM I wonder if he was somewhat pressured to accept Rust but does not actually care. If you were the leader of a project and explicitly authorized a sub-project, would you tolerate a maintainer undermining it?

dralley 2y ago
FWIW, there are plenty of backchannels through which discussions about this stuff can be had that aren't the public mailing list. My limited understanding is that those discussions have in fact taken place and the R4L people aren't concerned about things working out eventually. However, I do wish he would say something publicly, so that the internet peanut gallery doesn't fill the void with negativity. It doesn't exactly help attract more interest in the project.