arendjr
But he did step in, albeit privately. I actually agree an earlier public statement would have helped, but we don’t know the specifics of what went on behind the scenes.
In any case, I don’t think it’s fair to assign blame for Marcan’s burnout to Linus, as the post above did. Marcan himself mentioned personal reasons too when he announced his departure. I think we should show understanding and patience with both sides, and assigning blame isn’t helping with that.
That now involves fixing Rust drivers, so you’re going to need to know Rust.
I also don’t think the latter follows from the former. You can continue to not know Rust as long as you’re willing to work with those that can. Problems only start if you’re unwilling to collaborate.
You’re implying that Linus is somehow responsible for burning out Marcan? I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.
So far, the only good argument I have really seen from the ones opposing the Rust4Linux effort comes down to: adding Rust to a C codebase introduces a lot of complexity that is hard to deal with.
But the argument offers no solution except to give up and not even attempt to address the real issues the kernel struggles with. It’s effectively a form of defeatism when you want to give up and don’t want to let others attempt to do what you don’t see as feasible.
Fair, just wanted to point out that the monarchy class I’m proposing is actually a communist class intended to keep the capitalist/socialist citizenry in check. So there may be more in it than you might have realised from the abstract alone.
in my case at least leads me to questioning how our political and social systems can change for the better.
Glad to see like-minded people here! I actually just finished a manifesto on this exact topic:
https://arendjr.nl/blog/2025/02/new-monarchy/
It’s quite the read, but I’d be happy to hear your feedback.
The formatter is similar to Prettier in that regard, yes. Recently we decided to deviate in one specific case for accessibility reasons, but it’s a rare exception: https://fosstodon.org/@biomejs/113163964170882716
The linter is less opinionated, but it’s not concerned with formatting.
Feel free to just use React on the frontend if you’re more familiar with it, but make sure you couple it with Redux. Then when the time comes you want to bring some Rust into the frontend, you can do so by writing your Redux reducers in Rust.
PS.: The blog post mentions using fp-bindgen for WASM bindings, but nowadays you’re probably better off using wasm-bindgen.
Sorry, but this mindset is hurting both Linux and security in general.
The reason we are seeing a lot of security vulnerabilities is because prior to about 10 years ago security wasn’t considered that important.
This is frankly quite obviously false. Microsoft started taking security more seriously around the release of Windows 2000. Are you saying the Linux kernel developers took another 15 years to realize security is important?
Security research shows that new code is more prone to common vulnerabilities than old code is. While old code may have been designed with weak (or no) security considerations, those are well-mitigated by now. On the contrary, new code still regularly contains exploitable memory safety issues that slip by review.
What we need is skilled programmers who understand security.
We have skilled programmers who understand security. Those also understand that we need more than that.
Continuing to use C doesn’t merely require skilled programmers, it requires programmers that never make any mistake ever. That’s an infeasible standard for any human to uphold, hence why C is considered a risk.
I agree the Linux kernel is just fine. But that’s only because despite the security risks of C, there’s no viable alternative kernel.
But development doesn’t stand still, so either Linux catches up, or gets replaced when a viable alternative arrives. Thankfully Linus sees the problem, so they’re working to make the kernel viable a while longer, but I also agree with the person you replied to that this work could definitely use a bit more help.
Yeah, I think we’re pretty much aligned on that.
I also wish I could do more in those regards, but I’m neither an American nor a politician. The latter I could change, but even if I were successful, then by the time I could affect some change it would probably be too late.
Still refusing to sit idly by, I decided to have a thought on how this could be prevented. A system with similar values as democracy, but better resilience against corruption could theoretically prevent a lot of harm. I don’t when or if anyone would be willing and able to do something with these ideas, but I figured it was the best I could do for now.