Finding the kernels of truth among the bullshit and doing my best to respond in good faith: regarding the scope of a Linux-compatible kernel written from scratch...
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Yes, the road I propose is not necessarily the fastest way to getting secure kernels in the hands of users, and it would be faster and easier if we could get Rust in Linux without having to play the political game. But given that the political game isn't going away, we have to consider the other road as an *option*.
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And honestly the idea that we *have* to do it in Linux to get anything useful done at a practical scale for kernels is a really fatalistic assumption that spits in the face of just about any serious osdev project and condemns us to live with the design issues of Linux forever -- and believe me Linux has a lot of design issues. Even making a new kernel based on its general design gives us an opportunity to make a ton of sorely needed improvements.
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I very much dislike the assumption that any serious greenfield osdev work is a lost cause. It's not.
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And for the record, there's nothing wrong with the political game being a necessary challenge to overcome. The toxicity is wrong, but the politics is not necessarily bad on the face of it. The Rust community is not going to get anywhere with the presumption that they're always right and everyone needs to toe the party line about memory safety yesterday or else. The Rust community tends to be bad at politics and makes that everyone else's problem.
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Oh, and a necessary caveat for this post: I think that the Rust-for-Linux developers have been playing the political game as well as they can, they're meeting the kernel devs on their turf and at their level, and treating people with respect and making reasonable arguments and taking their needs seriously. I'm talking about a problem with the Rust community as a whole moreso than the Rust-for-Linux team.
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Finally, if you think that I fly with toxicity in the Linux community and see me as an enabler rather than an ally, then you don't know jack shit about me and I have fucking receipts.
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@drewdevault fair. But sometimes a bit demotivating if the chance for it being used is very very slim
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Drew DeVaultreplied to kloenk last edited by [email protected]
@kloenk I don't even think the chances of it being used have to be very slim. I think that if the project I proposed got on its feet, it would be used. I think it'd have excellent chances for success. The chances of a research OS project going somewhere are much slimmer but if you're going in with compatibility with a proven design as a core goal then your odds are way better.
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@drewdevault hmm fair point. Iām not much in the political here, I rather write software. But sadly for something like this is the annoying money problem. Rent and things
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@kloenk I even think the odds of getting decent funding for it long-term are good
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@drewdevault And it's not like it's a binary choice either, like pointing the finger at the single worst cause of climate change and ignoring all others.
There are a lot of developers in the world. Enough to work on Rust-in-Linux and a Rust-only kernel as well.
A small, Rust-only kernel could try out some ideas that might actually spend up Rust-in-Linux development.
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@drewdevault I don't mean this as a challenge to you or something, but what would be the chance for you to kick off this effort?
Being a prominent developer and a known name in open source world, this might just be enough to cause some waves. Also not being a fan of rust, but recognizing its use for kernel development would be a statement of 'right tool for the job'.
One other thing that would maybe come with is potential change of collaboration from email to something else like sourcehut
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@amackif all of my attention for osdev is already spoken for by my current projects and I think that I would do poorly at designing a kernel in Rust.