The Linux kernel has been flirting heavily with Rust for some time. Work started in 2020 and last December, the first Rust-written drivers were added. The promise is obvious: Rust offers memory-safe options that can make the kernel more fault-resistant and error free.
As you can imagine, when your tech stack dates back to the 1970s, people are resistant to change. This isn’t Microsoft or Apple where an edict is going to come down from above forcing developers to switch to new technologies. This is more like a religious community where you have to slowly evangelize new teachings, hope that others see the light, and deal with those heretics who refuse to convert to the new faith.
Here’s a fine example, involving one of Linux’s most famous names, Ted T’so. If you’ve ever used ext2/3/4 or really Linux at all, you’ve been running T’so’s code. And he couldn’t care less about Rust:
…you’re trying to convince everyone to switch over to the religion as promulgated by Rust and the reality is that ain’t gonna happen because we have 50+ filesystems in Linux. They will not all be instantaneously converted over to Rust. Before that happens, we will continue to refactor C code because we want to make the C code better. If it breaks the Rust bindings…the Rust bindings are a second-class citizen and those filesystems that depend on the Rust bindings will break, and that is the R ustbinding’s problem, not the filesystem community at large’s problem, and that’s going to be true for a long, long time.
– T’so
And that’s from a hardcore Linux insider.
One of the Linux Rust advocates has had enough. Last Wedneday, Wedson Filho announced he was stepping down:
I am retiring from the project. 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.
In his resignation, he included a link to that T’so clip.
He expanded his thoughts in an interview with The Register:
When I started on this project, I fully expected we would get pushback on technical grounds and I was willing to work through that under the assumption that eventually we would find consensus. Almost four years into this, I expected we would be past tantrums from respected members of the Linux kernel community. I just ran out of steam to deal with them, as I said in my email. If it isn’t obvious, the gentleman yelling in the mic that I won’t force them to learn Rust is Ted Ts’o. But there are others. This is just one example that is recorded and readily available.
Listening to that recording, it seems a classic case of entrenched technologists unwilling to change. Here the Rust guys are saying “we want to include some new code, and if you decide you want to refactor on the C side, please keep us in the loop so we can collaborate.” And the C devs are saying “YOU WILL NOT FORCE US TO LEARN RUST!!!1!!”
It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. I’ll let Flipho finish this article:
I truly believe the future of kernels is with memory-safe languages. 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.
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I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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