It was a joke that Rust would destroy Linux when it was initially introduced. Its a memory safe language which made sense to be introduced to Linux kernel code base and for some it was the devil’s incarnate
Anyway back to present time a new argument about rust for linux erupted in the linux mailing which caused a shit show. It was public display of people berating each other in emails and social media.
The trigger which started as a technical discussion.
It was literal drama which started in the mailing list with a developer asking for adding dma coherent allocator for abstraction from a version 8 patch set. Related for direct memory access for rust in Linux.
The reply From: Christoph Hellwig (Veteran linux kernel maintainer)
Anyway the discussion turned from a technical discussion to Rust vs C points with abusive language and call for bringing in the code of conduct into the discussion. Linus Torvalds was absent in these discussion till now.
Anyway further conflict led to the complete meltdown of one maintainer, Hector Martin who is lead dev for Asahi Linux for apple silicon and the maintainer of ARM/Apple platform for Linux. He had a meltdown and started ranting on the email thread and on mastadon.
Finally Linus the one person who could have reigned in all the chaos showed up and said this.
Few links :
Finally the maintainer self removed himself as a maintainer for Linux kernel. He was maintainer for ARM/Apple platform. His replacement has already been found so anyone running Linux on Apple silicon, no need to worry.
Linux Kernel drama is super funny as all emails and internal fights are public.
Somebody clamored for social media orchestrated drama and got their a** served in a plate, well deserved.
Initially people on r\linux went gaga over feminine handle and gave metric tons of attention, now found it was a man behind Asahi Linux, yada, yada… though they not talking about that being embarrased of exposing own gullibility, lol.
Reading how they talk in emails I 100% agree its a toxic environment. Professionalism goes out the window.
This was the email he mentioned for context :
His last straw was the ‘Thin blue line’ comment. I have no opinion on whether it is offensive or not. Its just too much drama. They write wall of text going off into tangents interpreting things how they want.
Rust is part of the code base. If you had an such a big issue you should have raised it before 12 versions of Linux kernel were released with rust in it.
Too much emotion and humans involved. Hoping for sentient AI to fork Linux and create a version where all maintainers are AI. Maybe introduce a new language created by AI. Beyond the comprehension of flesh and blood humans. Guess I too went on a tangent
Any AI created language will be beyond human comprehension by default since it doesn’t need to be a high level language for human understanding. Unfortunately, we are far from that point as all we will get now is a parroting AI that will largely spit out C code if trained on the existing kernel code.
