3 ms·

Similar things might happen in other communities but Rust drama seems much more visible, and this isn't because of HN bias - the foundation having weird guideli

by jstx1 3y ago

Similar things might happen in other communities but Rust drama seems much more visible, and this isn't because of HN bias - the foundation having weird guidelines, controversy around governance, prominent people in the community badmouthing other languages in bad faith, now this. It's quite ugly.

josephg 3y ago
I also think part of it is rust’s unique and complex governance model. Python, Go, C++, Ruby and Nodejs all had (mostly) a single leader who was in charge of the project for the first few years and who set the tone for the decisions which came after. If there was drama like this in Python, Guido would step in and that would have been that. Rust has no leader - and as far as I can tell, it never had a leader. Rust is a motley crew of people who disagree about what rust is and what it’s trying to be fighting it out in unreadable GitHub issue comments. Who is responsible for the decisions that led to this drama? It sounds like it’s some nameless committee that made bad choices here. But committees of people with mixed political skills don’t average out to being an effective organisation.
- jakear 3y ago
  How ironic that Rust should have the most problems arising as a result of shared ownership. Perhaps they should consider a model where the entity has a single logical owner and requests to change its state are made by passing messages to that owner…
  - josephg 3y ago
    I don't think its ironic. Its just that a shared ownership model is more complex than having a single person in charge, making decisions. And its a reasonably new idea - not many of us have the experience and skills we need to make it work. Inevitably, more mistakes happen. In many ways its sort of incredible and impressive how well rust functions. There's probably hundreds of people involved, from core compiler tooling, language design, cargo, crates.io, things like rustconf, steering and governing everything else. The fact that for the most part, it all works to make the language and ecosystem improve constantly is a pretty impressive feat.
    - mwcampbell 3y ago
      Still, how much simpler, more efficient, and less drama-filled would it be with fewer people, and particularly with a single person in charge? It's like the inefficiency of a prematurely distributed system full of microservices versus a monolith that runs just fine on a single modest machine.
      - arp242 3y ago
        You're still going to need a team of people to do all sorts of $stuff with a BFDL, and when people get involved conflicts happen. Python has been without a BFDL for almost 5 years, and seems to be doing fine. I'm not so sure this is a huge factor. I think the bigger reason is that Rust tends to go to great lengths to avoid drama and overemphasises kindness a bit too much, which somewhat paradoxical seems to invite drama like this. Things that should be said are left unsaid, pressure builds up, resentment and suspicions linger. The entire Rust moderation team resigned a year ago, without offering a reason. Who knows what happened, but if three people all resign on principle then it sure gives off a certain smell, and it's not a good one. Being more open would have invited drama, yes, but now the lingering vibe remains "there is something fishy with the core team, but we don't know what". This sort of "there is something but we don't know what" seems to be a recurring theme in RustEnders. I'm all in favour of the goals as such, but I'm a lot less sure that the methods actually achieve that. In addition: kindness also means being forgiving of the unkindness of others (within reason, of course). People sometimes seem to forget that. Everyone is an asshole sometimes.
    - another_story 3y ago
      I think op is making a rust joke more than anything else.
    - jakear 3y ago
      You understand a central tenant of Rust is forbidding shared ownership?
      - josephg 3y ago
        Oh, whooosh. Thankyou.
- pepa65 3y ago
  It illustrates the weakness of this model of governance, with no clear leader. Politics can tear a project apart, and even ill-intentioned actors that do not want the project to do well can infiltrate and cause divisions. When a leader/founder is the BDFL, they usually want the project to keep flourishing according to their original (or evolving) vision.

by jstx1 3y ago

josephg 3y ago

I also think part of it is rust’s unique and complex governance model. Python, Go, C++, Ruby and Nodejs all had (mostly) a single leader who was in charge of the project for the first few years and who set the tone for the decisions which came after. If there was drama like this in Python, Guido would step in and that would have been that. Rust has no leader - and as far as I can tell, it never had a leader. Rust is a motley crew of people who disagree about what rust is and what it’s trying to be fighting it out in unreadable GitHub issue comments. Who is responsible for the decisions that led to this drama? It sounds like it’s some nameless committee that made bad choices here. But committees of people with mixed political skills don’t average out to being an effective organisation.

jakear 3y ago
How ironic that Rust should have the most problems arising as a result of shared ownership. Perhaps they should consider a model where the entity has a single logical owner and requests to change its state are made by passing messages to that owner…
- josephg 3y ago
  I don't think its ironic. Its just that a shared ownership model is more complex than having a single person in charge, making decisions. And its a reasonably new idea - not many of us have the experience and skills we need to make it work. Inevitably, more mistakes happen. In many ways its sort of incredible and impressive how well rust functions. There's probably hundreds of people involved, from core compiler tooling, language design, cargo, crates.io, things like rustconf, steering and governing everything else. The fact that for the most part, it all works to make the language and ecosystem improve constantly is a pretty impressive feat.
  - mwcampbell 3y ago
    Still, how much simpler, more efficient, and less drama-filled would it be with fewer people, and particularly with a single person in charge? It's like the inefficiency of a prematurely distributed system full of microservices versus a monolith that runs just fine on a single modest machine.
    - arp242 3y ago
      You're still going to need a team of people to do all sorts of $stuff with a BFDL, and when people get involved conflicts happen. Python has been without a BFDL for almost 5 years, and seems to be doing fine. I'm not so sure this is a huge factor. I think the bigger reason is that Rust tends to go to great lengths to avoid drama and overemphasises kindness a bit too much, which somewhat paradoxical seems to invite drama like this. Things that should be said are left unsaid, pressure builds up, resentment and suspicions linger. The entire Rust moderation team resigned a year ago, without offering a reason. Who knows what happened, but if three people all resign on principle then it sure gives off a certain smell, and it's not a good one. Being more open would have invited drama, yes, but now the lingering vibe remains "there is something fishy with the core team, but we don't know what". This sort of "there is something but we don't know what" seems to be a recurring theme in RustEnders. I'm all in favour of the goals as such, but I'm a lot less sure that the methods actually achieve that. In addition: kindness also means being forgiving of the unkindness of others (within reason, of course). People sometimes seem to forget that. Everyone is an asshole sometimes.
  - another_story 3y ago
    I think op is making a rust joke more than anything else.
  - jakear 3y ago
    You understand a central tenant of Rust is forbidding shared ownership?
    - josephg 3y ago
      Oh, whooosh. Thankyou.
pepa65 3y ago
It illustrates the weakness of this model of governance, with no clear leader. Politics can tear a project apart, and even ill-intentioned actors that do not want the project to do well can infiltrate and cause divisions. When a leader/founder is the BDFL, they usually want the project to keep flourishing according to their original (or evolving) vision.