https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/rust-in-linux-lead-retires-rather-than-deal-with-more-nontechnical-nonsense/

you could say the Linux kernel has rusted on the inside.

#linux

""I was expecting [Rust] updates to be faster, but part of the problem is that old-time kernel developers are used to C and don't know Rust," Torvalds said. "They're not exactly excited about having to learn a new language that is, in some respects, very different. So there's been some pushback on Rust." Torvalds added, however, that "another reason has been the Rust infrastructure itself has not been super stable.""

I see, okay. A case of "We've always done it that way." Applied to programming a popular computer kernel.

This is what I mean when I said programmers are idiots sometimes.

Stop writing new C code, you fools. It is not good for the future of your project. And that matters for a project as important as the Linux kernel.

"Rust infrastructure is not itself stable."

Okay. Why not use some of the resources of the Linux Foundation to help stabilize Rust's infrastructure? Seems eminently doable. Both are open source projects. COLLABORATE.

You are telling me a old-timer C programmer cannot learn Rust? Really? Weak shit. Get the fuck out of here and make space for programmers who haven't rusted their skills.

"Filho also left a "sample for context," a link to a moment during a Linux conference talk in which an off-camera voice, identified by Filho in a Register interview as kernel maintainer Ted Ts'o, emphatically interjects: "Here's the thing: you're not going to force all of us to learn Rust." In the context of Filho's request that Linux's file system implement Rust bindings, Ts'o says that while he knows he must fix all the C code for any change he makes, he cannot or will not fix the Rust bindings that may be affected."

To Ted Ts'o: Retire bitch.

Yesterday JS web devs caught heat from me, today it is C programmers who need to retire and shut the fuck up apparently.

"Wedson Almeida Filho, a leader in the Rust for Linux project, wrote to the Linux kernel mailing list last week to remove himself as the project's maintainer. "After almost 4 years, I find myself lacking the energy and enthusiasm I once had to respond to some of the nontechnical nonsense, so it's best to leave it up to those who still have it in them," Filho wrote. While thanking his teammates, he noted that he believed the future of kernels "is with memory-safe languages," such as Rust. "I am no visionary but if Linux doesn't internalize this, I'm afraid some other kernel will do to it what it did to Unix," Filho wrote."

And now we lost a fantastic contributor to the Linux kernel. Great job. Well done everyone.

Open source projects whining about not getting new contributors. Well here's a lesson, don't do what the Linux kernel maintainers just did. If you want your project to actually grow and progress into the future, you need fresh ideas from newcomers.

If you drive them away with a stubborn unwillingness to learn and honestly just incompetent community and project management, this is what happens. Newcomers will come and see what's up and then leave. Because it is clear they and their ideas are not welcome.

Computer kernels come and go like the wind. If the Linux kernel project wants to maintain its relevancy in the coming future they need to adapt a better programming language like Rust. They also need actually good project and community management and not rule by oligarchy of a few old-time maintainers.

Otherwise, they will be replaced by better, safer code in new kernel projects and then eventually relegated to the dustbin of computer history.

#linux

"Linux kernel is too important to become irrelevant!!"

Research In Motion (RIM) and BlackBerry thought they were too important as well and they ignored the existential threat that just arrived into the world: Apple's first iPhone.

And now RIM and BlackBerry are in the dustbin of computer history. A footnote.

So, no, the Linux project is not "too important" to be superseded by better managed and written projects.

Change and adapt or be left behind as the world moves on.

""I am no visionary but if Linux doesn't internalize this, I'm afraid some other kernel will do to it what it did to Unix," Filho wrote"

Filho got it right. We don't need a visionary to understand this. Unix was the Hot Thing at some point. It isn't any more. Got superseded by Linux. Written by some upstart Finnish programmer. Linus Torvalds.

It can happen again.