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Rust should just build their own super safe OS, instead of nagging existing projects to adopt their practices. If they can successfully build an another success

Rust should just build their own super safe OS, instead of nagging existing projects to adopt their practices. If they can successfully build an another successful OS it is much more convincing.

LeFantome 2y ago
What makes an OS “successful”? Does that have anything at all to do with the point they are making? Do you just mean, successfully make an OS? Because there are multiple examples of Rust based operating systems that are complete or nearly so. https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/ Or by “successful”, do we mean that it is popular? Because popularity has rarely correlated with technical superiority in the past ( or present ). Windows is much more popular than Linux. Linux surged to popularity when FreeBSD was more complete and technically superior. Plan 9 has entered the chat. Popularity depends on totally different skills and circumstances than technical excellence. Memory safety, performance, and security do not necessarily drive popularity. What do we mean by success?
- ducktective 2y ago
  > What do we mean by success? They should write an OS that is "so good" that people start talking about it as much as the options we have now, then people actually start using it on their servers (replacing GNU/Linux), then on their desktops. So good that companies like Google and Apple would consider making their next OSs or userland utilities in Rust. It already happened for some programs like Alacritty, ripgrep but failed to do so in some other domains like user-space window managers. The common argument against it is complexity and learning curve (compared to C). Perhaps I'm not the one who should voice his opinion on this but anyway, I don't like _two_ languages in Linux kernel especially one that increases compile time and imposes heavy storage requirement on the development machine. If they want to add it, they should consider migrating everything to it IMO.
  - iknowstuff 2y ago
    exposing billions of people to security vulnerabilities by preventing Rust from being used in Rust due to compile times or storage requirements of developers is morally questionable
  - whytevuhuni 2y ago
    > They should write an OS that is "so good" that people start talking about it as much as the options we have now, then people actually start using it Is the proposal here to replicate the 30 million lines of code of Linux? Anything short of that is going to have massive adoption problems, much like Linux did in the past, much like FreeBSD/Illumos/etc do now, due to the lack of drivers. It took so long, and devices still don't properly support Linux; there is no way another free and open source system will take off like Linux did, ever again. > failed to do so in some other domains like user-space window managers Do things like Way Cooler and COSMIC not count? I have seen Way Cooler mentioned as being used a couple times, and COSMIC gets regular coverage for its development progress.
- echoangle 2y ago
  > Linux surged to popularity when FreeBSD was more complete and technically superior. Is that true? Is there somewhere to read up on that? Why Linux became more popular than FreeBSD especially?
  - em-bee 2y ago
    BSD already was a complete operating system by the time linux kernel development started. unfortunately in 1992 there was a lawsuit that put the license of the BSD code into question. by the time the lawsuit ended and the license was clarified or confirmed, linux+GNU had already taken over in popularity.

Rust should just build their own super safe OS, instead of nagging existing projects to adopt their practices. If they can successfully build an another successful OS it is much more convincing.

LeFantome 2y ago

What makes an OS “successful”? Does that have anything at all to do with the point they are making? Do you just mean, successfully make an OS? Because there are multiple examples of Rust based operating systems that are complete or nearly so. https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/ Or by “successful”, do we mean that it is popular? Because popularity has rarely correlated with technical superiority in the past ( or present ). Windows is much more popular than Linux. Linux surged to popularity when FreeBSD was more complete and technically superior. Plan 9 has entered the chat. Popularity depends on totally different skills and circumstances than technical excellence. Memory safety, performance, and security do not necessarily drive popularity. What do we mean by success?

ducktective 2y ago
> What do we mean by success? They should write an OS that is "so good" that people start talking about it as much as the options we have now, then people actually start using it on their servers (replacing GNU/Linux), then on their desktops. So good that companies like Google and Apple would consider making their next OSs or userland utilities in Rust. It already happened for some programs like Alacritty, ripgrep but failed to do so in some other domains like user-space window managers. The common argument against it is complexity and learning curve (compared to C). Perhaps I'm not the one who should voice his opinion on this but anyway, I don't like _two_ languages in Linux kernel especially one that increases compile time and imposes heavy storage requirement on the development machine. If they want to add it, they should consider migrating everything to it IMO.
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  exposing billions of people to security vulnerabilities by preventing Rust from being used in Rust due to compile times or storage requirements of developers is morally questionable
- whytevuhuni 2y ago
  > They should write an OS that is "so good" that people start talking about it as much as the options we have now, then people actually start using it Is the proposal here to replicate the 30 million lines of code of Linux? Anything short of that is going to have massive adoption problems, much like Linux did in the past, much like FreeBSD/Illumos/etc do now, due to the lack of drivers. It took so long, and devices still don't properly support Linux; there is no way another free and open source system will take off like Linux did, ever again. > failed to do so in some other domains like user-space window managers Do things like Way Cooler and COSMIC not count? I have seen Way Cooler mentioned as being used a couple times, and COSMIC gets regular coverage for its development progress.
echoangle 2y ago
> Linux surged to popularity when FreeBSD was more complete and technically superior. Is that true? Is there somewhere to read up on that? Why Linux became more popular than FreeBSD especially?
- em-bee 2y ago
  BSD already was a complete operating system by the time linux kernel development started. unfortunately in 1992 there was a lawsuit that put the license of the BSD code into question. by the time the lawsuit ended and the license was clarified or confirmed, linux+GNU had already taken over in popularity.