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Canonical is Funding a PhD to Automate C to Rust Translation for Ubuntu (itsfoss.com)
submitted 2 days ago by SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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As part of the collaboration between Canonical and the University of Bristol, the project will target AppArmor and snap-confine as industrial case studies. Both are critical to Ubuntu’s security posture, and provide a substantially harder test than isolated translation examples. They will help us evaluate whether the techniques can cope with the structure and constraints of mature production software.

Note that this is not a commitment to replace AppArmor or snap-confine with what is generated, rather that we have a vested interest in the software and are keen to see the results.

The most optimistic outcome would be a system capable of translating substantial C repositories into Rust with strong evidence of behavioural equivalence and relatively little manual intervention. The research could also produce better methods for decomposing repositories, stronger validation techniques, reusable translation datasets, improved program-repair tools and a more precise understanding of where automated migration stops being reliable.

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[-] ISO@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Wow! What an observant smart thought.

Well, except for the fact that code conversion doesn't give you the permission to change licenses or remove copyright. And the small matter of fact that both projects mentioned are Canonical projects, where whatever code that is not directly copyrighted by Canonical, is contributed by someone who signed an agreement with this stipulation:

(b) To the maximum extent permitted by the relevant law, You grant to Us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, irrevocable licence under the Copyright covering the Contribution, with the right to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of sublicensees, to reproduce, modify, display, perform and distribute the Contribution as part of the Material; provided that this license is conditioned upon compliance with Section 2.3.

"Us" being Canonical of course. So they could actually "re-license" the projects right now, without changing a single line of code.

It's always astonishing how condiment in their ignorance people are when it comes to these matters.

You geniuses are getting too predictable with your ignorance.

I literally wrote what's quoted above yesterday replying to someone else.

this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
131 points (100.0% liked)

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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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