6 ms·

Can any of the Ferrocene folks here can talk about what the release cadence for officially qualified Rust toolchains might be?

Xylakant 3y ago
A lot of the timeline depends on the partner we're working with to achieve qualification. Initial qualification definitely takes longer, but we're having discussions on how we can cut down on the manual part of the certification. We do for example pull in all releases of the compiler, including nightly, and build them using our CI and test sytems. The versions that pass are made available to our customers, so they can follow the release cycle - though these are obviously not qualified and nightly comes with the usual nightly (lack of) stability guarantees. I obviously can't make any promises here, but we aim to pick two of those rust versions per year and then certify them - how long that takes depends on the feedback we get from the auditor and on their availability. The exact cadence will need a little shakedown - no one has experience in qualifying rust compilers continously :)
- the_duke 3y ago
  Side question: Is your pricing in line with the norms in this sector? It seems really cheap to me.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    From past experience, other companies in this space typically charge 1-2 orders of magnitude more per seat. Their products are also usually worse than the free/OSS options that don't come with certification paperwork.
    - whizzter 3y ago
      They're a new entry into the space and with something as "groundbreaking" as Rust their idea is probably to push for better/cheaper up until there is enough seats that they can start charging more once people have invested enough to not want(or be able) to change toolchains. At that point they not only have locked in customers, they also have them as references for other customers to justify why new customers should pay more (Existing customers will probably be the ones paying least for the longest).
      - hobofan 3y ago
        > until there is enough seats that they can start charging more once people have invested enough to not want(or be able) to change toolchains I can understand how one could have that impression about generic suppliers in the field. However from everything I know about the people at Ferrous Systems, I'd be incredibly surprised if that's a strategy they are pursuing.
        Xylakant 3y ago
        Thank you, we appreciate the compliment :)
      - Xylakant 3y ago
        I’m happy to outline our general reasoning of how we arrived at the pricing, though I’ll obviously not go into specifics. First of all, our competition is the open source rust compiler. Current Ferrocene is a downstream of rust 1.68 and a drop in replacement, so you can develop your project using the open source rust compiler and at the point where certification is required switch. You obviously won’t get support, but the safety manuals and all the certification documentation is open source. The compiler source is also open source, so you can build from our source. So our offering is essentially the quality management and handling of all the minutiae required to use a compiler in a corporate environment, including LTS support when required, signed installers, management of known issues, certifications, etc. We could ask for prices an order of magnitude higher if we kept all the documentation closed, but that would mean our customer base is the people that require certification now. We’d rather have a reasonable price point and charge for the work we save the user - which puts a reasonable upper bound on the per seat price. Also, that ship has sailed - as I said, all accompanying documentation is open, which also keeps us honest.
  - Argorak 3y ago
    It's certainly an unusual pricing style, but people grok it and appreciate it. Also, note that this is for the "quality managed" version - additional support and documents that I sign off for safety (so enter a liability) are more expensive. But on the other side, there's so many that would buy if it were more accessible.
- bonzini 3y ago
  According to (second-hand) experience with auditors with respect to open source, they were quite open to considering things like CI, good commit messages etc. are useful when evaluating the development process, and even considered them sufficient (with adequate explanation) towards some of the ISO26262 requirements. However, that was for ASIL B only.
  - Argorak 3y ago
    That matches our experience. They were super pragmatic. Also, their feedback was tough, but always technically grounded and from the perspective of "is the user always well informed?".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Xylakant 3y ago

A lot of the timeline depends on the partner we're working with to achieve qualification. Initial qualification definitely takes longer, but we're having discussions on how we can cut down on the manual part of the certification. We do for example pull in all releases of the compiler, including nightly, and build them using our CI and test sytems. The versions that pass are made available to our customers, so they can follow the release cycle - though these are obviously not qualified and nightly comes with the usual nightly (lack of) stability guarantees. I obviously can't make any promises here, but we aim to pick two of those rust versions per year and then certify them - how long that takes depends on the feedback we get from the auditor and on their availability. The exact cadence will need a little shakedown - no one has experience in qualifying rust compilers continously :)

the_duke 3y ago
Side question: Is your pricing in line with the norms in this sector? It seems really cheap to me.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  From past experience, other companies in this space typically charge 1-2 orders of magnitude more per seat. Their products are also usually worse than the free/OSS options that don't come with certification paperwork.
  - whizzter 3y ago
    They're a new entry into the space and with something as "groundbreaking" as Rust their idea is probably to push for better/cheaper up until there is enough seats that they can start charging more once people have invested enough to not want(or be able) to change toolchains. At that point they not only have locked in customers, they also have them as references for other customers to justify why new customers should pay more (Existing customers will probably be the ones paying least for the longest).
    - hobofan 3y ago
      > until there is enough seats that they can start charging more once people have invested enough to not want(or be able) to change toolchains I can understand how one could have that impression about generic suppliers in the field. However from everything I know about the people at Ferrous Systems, I'd be incredibly surprised if that's a strategy they are pursuing.
      - Xylakant 3y ago
        Thank you, we appreciate the compliment :)
    - Xylakant 3y ago
      I’m happy to outline our general reasoning of how we arrived at the pricing, though I’ll obviously not go into specifics. First of all, our competition is the open source rust compiler. Current Ferrocene is a downstream of rust 1.68 and a drop in replacement, so you can develop your project using the open source rust compiler and at the point where certification is required switch. You obviously won’t get support, but the safety manuals and all the certification documentation is open source. The compiler source is also open source, so you can build from our source. So our offering is essentially the quality management and handling of all the minutiae required to use a compiler in a corporate environment, including LTS support when required, signed installers, management of known issues, certifications, etc. We could ask for prices an order of magnitude higher if we kept all the documentation closed, but that would mean our customer base is the people that require certification now. We’d rather have a reasonable price point and charge for the work we save the user - which puts a reasonable upper bound on the per seat price. Also, that ship has sailed - as I said, all accompanying documentation is open, which also keeps us honest.
- Argorak 3y ago
  It's certainly an unusual pricing style, but people grok it and appreciate it. Also, note that this is for the "quality managed" version - additional support and documents that I sign off for safety (so enter a liability) are more expensive. But on the other side, there's so many that would buy if it were more accessible.
bonzini 3y ago
According to (second-hand) experience with auditors with respect to open source, they were quite open to considering things like CI, good commit messages etc. are useful when evaluating the development process, and even considered them sufficient (with adequate explanation) towards some of the ISO26262 requirements. However, that was for ASIL B only.
- Argorak 3y ago
  That matches our experience. They were super pragmatic. Also, their feedback was tough, but always technically grounded and from the perspective of "is the user always well informed?".
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]