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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The video attached is a perfect example of the kind of "I'm not prepared to learn anything new so everyone else is wrong" attitude that is eating away at Linux like a cancer.
If memory safety isn't adopted into the kernel, and C fanaticism discarded, Linux will face the same fate as the kernels it once replaced. Does the Linux foundation want to drag its heels and stuff millions into AI ventures whilst sysadmins quietly shift to new kernels that offer memory safety, or does it want to be part of that future?
If Linux gets rewritten in Rust it will be a new kernel, not Linux. You can make new kernels, even in Rust but they aren't Linux. You can advertise them at Linux conferences but you can't force every Linux dev to work on your new Rust kernel.
There is no "your" new rust kernel. There is a gigantic ship of Theseus that is the Linux kernel, and many parts of it are being rewritten, refactored, removed an added all the time by god knows how many different people. Some of those things will be done in rust.
Can we stop reacting to this the way conservatives react to gay people? Just let some rust exist. Nobody is forcing everyone to be gay, and nobody is forcing everybody to immediately abandon C and rewrite everything in rust.
Isn't Linux still Linux even though probably a lot of the original code is gone? Why would slowly rewriting it whole, or just parts, in Rust make it stop being Linux?
Ship of Theseus
Nobody is proposing rewriting the whole kernel in Rust.
Is a single line of code in the kernel completely unchanged since its birth?
Linux is whatever the Linux Mark Institute says it is.
the crew on the Ship of Theseus would like a word with you. Because if you strip out every subsystem and replace them with a different language, everyone would still call it Linux and it would still work as Linux.
Linux isn't "a bunch of C code" it's an API, an ABI, and a bunch of drivers bundled into a monorepo.
Linux is a development ecosystem. If everyone agrees to switch to Rust it can switch to Rust with continuity. But they won't.