@semperverus Just from the small interactions I had with Hector on mastodon I can see he gets very unreasonable about small things and does not accept the possibility that he may be wrong, despite evidence. So leaving linux and mastodon because of rust is totally on brand for him.

You seem to be in the loops of the linux kernel?
If so, ive known hector from way before when we was part of f0f, or TT as they were known before, doing wii homebrew work.
What you describe is what my experience was with him 14 years ago too. The guy is smart, he has a very good skill set and knowledge, but his communication skills were lacking back then too.
Granted, both he and myself were still teenagers and students and we were wild, but i had always assumed he grew up a bit since then...

What you said is spot on, and i hope he does read both of these. And if he does :
Marcan, you might not know who i am anymore, but ffs man. Dont screw up your love for all of these by keep kicking the hornets nests. You did it with devkitpro, emudevs when the nier news dropped and with rossman too. Stop it, its for your own good.

I can understand their frustration, having multiple other rust for Linux project maintainers quit over nontechnical rust aversion.

And Linus continues to (democratically?) avoid the subject with this response.

As a rust for Linux volunteer you have to be incredibly demoralized reading this mess almost every other month.

To be fair, I'm not sure how "I will do everything in my power to oppose this" is the anti-Rust side "work[ing] towards some resolution"...

Except you're wrong about them wanting to put Rust code in the DMA subtree. As per the article linked below by M1ch431:

In a message to the Linux kernel mailing list, Hellwig wrote: "No Rust code in kernel/dma, please." For what it's worth, the patch added code to the rust/kernel portion of the Linux source tree, not kernel/dma, as far as we can tell.

All they were doing is adding an abstraction layer, within the already existing Rust code, so that rust drivers could communicate with the C DMA code in a uniform and predictable manner. It would have put far more work on maintainers, both C and Rust alike, to have each and every driver implement its own abstraction to the DMA API. Issues would have been/will be filed against the kernel/dma subtree in error due to issues with these myriad abstraction layers.

LEEEEROOOOOY JENKINS!

It sounds like he tried that, and nobody with authority responded until he went outside the list. Even now, Linus hasn't actually answered the question of whether more rust code should be allowed.

I don't think it's blind devotion - most of us would acknowledge the guy can be a bit of a dick sometimes.

But we're also grateful. Without his silly idea in the 90s, linux wouldn't exist. Computing today would be massively different - big, commercial, massively expensive unixes like Sco and Solaris dominating the industry. My main hobby for 20 years would be very different. My career for six years wouldn't exist.

That Linus has stayed an actively contributing member whilst not selling out in any way at all for 34 years is... wow. Could you do it? I'm certain i couldn't. I have neither the ethical strength nor moral compass to do it. And I'm certain if he dropped out, some of the massive egos that satellite around Linux, or the monetizing businesses would seek to take over and twist it to their needs.

And, y'know, on the matter of technical detail like this. He's nearly always right. Seriously, look it up. He's not polite, he's not diplomatic, but he's nearly always right. And when he's not, he'll admit it. Again, not your normal human.

So yeah, that's why we respect him and, when he talks, we listen. Even if it's not something we're involved with, it's usually an interesting ride.

I don't know if it's complete devotion, but Linus has a reputation he's earned the difficult/hard way.

If he says something, people should take it seriously and consider his words. That's not to say he's right all the time, but you'd better have a damn good reason for disagreeing with him.

Also a reply so you can understand a bit how things typically work in FOSS projects.

There's a democracy in healthy ones, but ultimately, there has to be someone at the top that has the final say. The project maintainer/main contributor. Someone who gets to be the tie breaker, or absolutely final authority on what does or doesn't make it into a patch/version/etc.

This is extremely common, and generally healthy, in these kinds of ecosystems.

If Linus genuinely went off the rails, the kernel would just get forked. Even right now, if the way the mainline project is run doesn't work for someone or what they are doing, that can and does happen.

Linus has power because the people who contribute to the project allow it, and they allow it because over the years he has consistently endeavoured to make decisions based on what is in the best interest of the project. People want him in charge, because he has done, and keeps doing, a really good job.

He hasn't always been nice to deal with, and he can get spicy when he puts his foot down, but whem he does, its not on a whim. And if he's wrong, and you can articulate why and how, in good faith, he won't ignore the logic of what you are saying out of some childish sense of pride.

It’s just respect

Its not antithetical to the Foss philosophy. Thus happens because Linus is a trusted figure, something he's absolutely earned. He didn't just buy control of some product, or get promoted to this position by a company. Many great open source projects have a BDFL. If people lose their trust in the projects BDFL, they fork the project.

Also, the kernel is really just one part of Linux. Distros include a whole bunch of software they choose to deliver a full OS (hence the Gnu+Linux people). Linus doesn't have control over the OS as a whole, just the kernel.

Edit: Just finished reading the chain, what do you mean the dude did a 180? He expressed frustration that Linux only criticized him, further criticized the issues with the kernel development process, and said he was giving up being part of the kernel.

Two things can be true at once:

• More Rust in the Linux kernel is good
• Brigading on social media is bad

Open source work is collborative. No matter how good an engineer someone is, if they can't figure out how work with others, then it's better to kick them out. A potentially insecure kernel is better than a non-existent one.