Hector Martin (@marcan@treehouse.systems)
social.treehouse.systems
Behold, a Linux maintainer openly admitting to attempting to sabotage the entire Rust for Linux project: https://lwn.net/ml/all/20250131075751.GA16720@lst.de/ **Edit for the Reddit peanut gallery: The reason this is sabotaging the entire R4L project is that DMA abstractions are critical for 99% of drivers, and without them, the R4L project is dead in its tracks. Christoph is fundamentally opposed to the goals and technical plan behind R4L, and offers no viable technical alternatives. If his demands are met, the R4L project is effectively dead with no way out, and that is what he wants. This is the dictionary definition of sabotage.** The good news is this doesn't affect drm/asahi, our GPU driver. The bad news is it does affect all the *other* drivers we're (re)writing in Rust, two so far with a third one coming. Another choice quote, calling R4L "cancer": https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250128092334.GA28548@lst.de/ (**R4L is the "cross-language codebase" he mentions, it's the whole point of R4L, and what he calls cancer. He's clarifying Rust itself isn't cancer, R4L is. Which is just as bad.**) Personally, I would consider this grounds for removal of Christoph from the Linux project on Code of Conduct violation grounds, but sadly I doubt much will happen other than draining a lot of people's energy and will to continue the project until Linus says "fuck you" or something. As for how to move forward, if I were one of the Rust maintainers, I would just merge the patch (which does *not* touch code formally maintained by the dissenter). Either Linus takes the pull, and whatever Christoph says is irrelevant, or he doesn't, and R4L dies. Everything else is a waste of everyone's time and energy. Edit: Sent in my 2 cents: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2b9b75d1-eb8e-494a-b05f-59f75c92e6ae@marcan.st/T/#m1944b6d485070970e359bbc7baa71b04c86a30af

Behold, a Linux maintainer openly admitting to attempting to sabotage the entire Rust for Linux project:

https://lwn.net/ml/all/20250131075751.GA16720@lst.de/

The good news is this doesn’t affect drm/asahi, our GPU driver. The bad news is it does affect all the other drivers we’re (re)writing in Rust, two so far with a third one coming.

Another choice quote, calling R4L “cancer”: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250128092334.GA28548@lst.de/

Personally, I would consider this grounds for removal of Christoph from the Linux project on Code of Conduct violation grounds, but sadly I doubt much will happen other than draining a lot of people’s energy and will to continue the project until Linus says “fuck you” or something.

As for how to move forward, if I were one of the Rust maintainers, I would just merge the patch (which does not touch code formally maintained by the dissenter). Either Linus takes the pull, and whatever Christoph says is irrelevant, or he doesn’t, and R4L dies. Everything else is a waste of everyone’s time and energy.

Edit: Sent in my 2 cents: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2b9b75d1-eb8e-494a-b05f-59f75c92e6ae@marcan.st/T/#m1944b6d485070970e359bbc7baa71b04c86a30af

  • BatmanAoD@programming.dev
    194·
    14 hours ago

    Do you take this sentence seriously, or not?

    I will do everything I can do to stop this.

    As far as I can tell, “this” here refers to literally any Rust code that isn’t constrained within a specific driver. That does indeed seem like a full-on attempt to stop the R4L project entirely.

    He does appear to have a real technical concern regarding maintainability.

    “Appear” is doing some heavy lifting there. Opponents of the R4L project always couch their objections in technical concerns. For what it’s worth, I can’t actually find any concerns of merit or substance in that particular thread, although navigating mailing list threads is honestly pretty error-prone, so I may have missed it.

    • Scoopta@programming.dev
      52·
      9 hours ago

      I do take it seriously and I think he’s overreacting a little but he does make a reasonable point. Bringing 2 languages into the kernel does create a divide that can come with a maintenance burden. The burden is probably worth the benefits but it’s still an additional burden and that is a valid concern IMO that should be properly addressed and argued with pros/cons rather than name calling and dismissal. Maybe he is acting in bad faith, but I feel like that should only be the conclusion drawn AFTER a reasonable attempt to talk things over has been made.

      Additionally assuming someone is acting in bad faith when they’re not can make them jaded with the rust community and push them to actually acting with bad faith even if they weren’t before.

      Regardless of the situation and whether he’s acting in bad faith or not I feel like marcan’s comments add nothing productive to the situation and that was my real point with the comment.

      • pressanykeynow@lemmy.world
        5·
        5 hours ago

        Bringing 2 languages into the kernel does create a divide that can come with a maintenance burden

        There are already 2 languages in the kernel: C and Assembly(for example).

        should be properly addressed and argued with pros/cons

        That already happened and Linus decided to accept Rust code into the kernel.