In my opinion, the Rust core team - having evolved from Mozilla - is - just like Mozilla - more interested in social issues than in technology. That's actually sad, because what Rust would need is meritocracy.
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2023
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I don't know, I think having tech groups that are more interested in social issues than the technology itself is a good thing. Way, waaaay too many tech folks keep unleashing hell on the world because they don't care to consider the impacts of what they make or do.
Mozilla's issue really seems to be more one of conflict of interest. They need funding, and the only way they seem to be able to reliably get it is to be and remain compromised.
How can we have (relevant) technical progress if tech groups consider technology an afterthought?
Technology isn't an end in itself, it is subordinate to the need to solve problems. I don't see how we can have relevant technical progress if tech groups don't consider "social issues" (in quotes because I'm abusing that label to include a lot of things in my head). Although maybe we're thinking about this at different levels of scale.
Graydon's post reads like he thinks it has been a kind of meritocracy guiding Rust's design, rather than for example specific people like himself with rigid, perhaps widely unpopular, principles in mind.
The people side of Rust leadership has had some drama (apparently, I have not really paid attention) but the language design side of Rust seems to have functioned quite well so far.