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> Hellwig appears to be unwilling to accept that. > I think this is a reasonable position on both sides. I disagree. Hellwig is trying to dictate who/how use

> Hellwig appears to be unwilling to accept that. > I think this is a reasonable position on both sides. I disagree. Hellwig is trying to dictate who/how uses his subsystem/code. Linus makes it clear, you don't have to use/accept Rust in your own codebase, but you can't tell others what they can do in their codebase.

gnfargbl 2y ago
You can reasonably disagree with the direction of a project that you're involved in, and you can withdraw from that project if it refuses to change direction.
beardyw 2y ago
You can't call resigning "dictating". He has free will.
- monocasa 2y ago
  It's not the resigning that was the dictating; it was the NACKing patches.
woodrowbarlow 2y ago
exactly; and i think Hellwig is on the wrong side of free software philosophy on this point. the fundamental philosophical core of free software is that the downstream user must be empowered to use the software as they see fit.
- amiga386 2y ago
  Well, no, the issue is that R4L isn't downstream. It's right there alongside the kernel, a part of the kernel, it's one combined project. Someone can use your text parsing program to run a nuclear power plant, that's fine. The same person can't make you to accept the nuclear power plant control script as part of your repository, and support the "nuclear power plant controlling functionality" of your text parsing program.
  - woodrowbarlow 2y ago
    Hellwig controls the DMA code. The Rust bindings use the DMA code. Hellwig is free to change the DMA code without considering whether or not it breaks the rust bindings. the rust bindings are not his problem, nor does he need to start maintaining any rust code. from Linus: > You are not forced to take any Rust code, or care about any Rust code in the DMA code. You can ignore it. [...] So when you change the C interfaces, the Rust people will have to deal with the fallout, and will have to fix the Rust bindings. sounds like it's structured as a downstream user to me.
    - subsistence234 2y ago
      > Hellwig is free to change the DMA code without considering whether or not it breaks the rust bindings. The fact that he was not allowed to do that is exactly why he escalated.
      - Ukv 2y ago
        He's allowed to reject Rust within DMA, which he maintains. What he wasn't allowed to do was veto code that was merely a user of DMA, on the basis of objecting to R4L in general ("I will do everything I can do to stop this"): > The fact is, the pull request you objected to DID NOT TOUCH THE DMA LAYER AT ALL. It was literally just another user of it, in a completely separate subdirectory, that didn't change the code you maintain in _any_ way, shape, or form.
nicce 2y ago
Whatever it is, Hellwig has used his freetime to maintain these modules. Usually that means that he has seen some value in that. Maybe he liked it. Maybe he hoped that he was doing some good and beneficial. Now this change caused the total net value become negative. It was perfectly okay to express his opinions. Opinion was disliked and it is pretty okay, while sad, that he stopped maintaining it. Nothing to do with dictating.
- toyg 2y ago
  > Maybe he liked it. Maybe he got a lot of professional mileage from being "the" Christoph Hellwig, Linux DMA maintainer. Independent consultants need publicity.
  - subsistence234 2y ago
    For his day job he's regularly been coding in Rust since ~2020.
    - toyg 2y ago
      That's irrelevant, we're talking reputation.
subsistence234 2y ago
Or am I missing something? C subsystem patches have started to be rejected by Linus because they break Rust builds despite the agreement that this wouldn't happen. That's why Hellwig switched from ignoring Rust patches sent to him for review to NACKing this one. Hellwig did it, from what anyone can tell, to get Linus to publish the actual policy which he still hasn't done yet.
- steveklabnik 2y ago
  > C subsystem patches have started to be rejected by Linus because they break Rust builds despite the agreement that this wouldn't happen. No. There was one instance of a toolchain issue accidentally including some Rust stuff when Rust was configured off, this was fairly quickly rectified. Linus even said in one of his more recent emails that this happens infrequently, but also, this happens all the time in general, and that’s why linux-next exists. Linus did reaffirm the policy of “C folks are allowed to fully ignore Rust stuff.”

gnfargbl 2y ago

You can reasonably disagree with the direction of a project that you're involved in, and you can withdraw from that project if it refuses to change direction.

beardyw 2y ago

You can't call resigning "dictating". He has free will.

monocasa 2y ago
It's not the resigning that was the dictating; it was the NACKing patches.

woodrowbarlow 2y ago

exactly; and i think Hellwig is on the wrong side of free software philosophy on this point. the fundamental philosophical core of free software is that the downstream user must be empowered to use the software as they see fit.

amiga386 2y ago
Well, no, the issue is that R4L isn't downstream. It's right there alongside the kernel, a part of the kernel, it's one combined project. Someone can use your text parsing program to run a nuclear power plant, that's fine. The same person can't make you to accept the nuclear power plant control script as part of your repository, and support the "nuclear power plant controlling functionality" of your text parsing program.
- woodrowbarlow 2y ago
  Hellwig controls the DMA code. The Rust bindings use the DMA code. Hellwig is free to change the DMA code without considering whether or not it breaks the rust bindings. the rust bindings are not his problem, nor does he need to start maintaining any rust code. from Linus: > You are not forced to take any Rust code, or care about any Rust code in the DMA code. You can ignore it. [...] So when you change the C interfaces, the Rust people will have to deal with the fallout, and will have to fix the Rust bindings. sounds like it's structured as a downstream user to me.
  - subsistence234 2y ago
    > Hellwig is free to change the DMA code without considering whether or not it breaks the rust bindings. The fact that he was not allowed to do that is exactly why he escalated.
    - Ukv 2y ago
      He's allowed to reject Rust within DMA, which he maintains. What he wasn't allowed to do was veto code that was merely a user of DMA, on the basis of objecting to R4L in general ("I will do everything I can do to stop this"): > The fact is, the pull request you objected to DID NOT TOUCH THE DMA LAYER AT ALL. It was literally just another user of it, in a completely separate subdirectory, that didn't change the code you maintain in _any_ way, shape, or form.

nicce 2y ago

Whatever it is, Hellwig has used his freetime to maintain these modules. Usually that means that he has seen some value in that. Maybe he liked it. Maybe he hoped that he was doing some good and beneficial. Now this change caused the total net value become negative. It was perfectly okay to express his opinions. Opinion was disliked and it is pretty okay, while sad, that he stopped maintaining it. Nothing to do with dictating.

toyg 2y ago
> Maybe he liked it. Maybe he got a lot of professional mileage from being "the" Christoph Hellwig, Linux DMA maintainer. Independent consultants need publicity.
- subsistence234 2y ago
  For his day job he's regularly been coding in Rust since ~2020.
  - toyg 2y ago
    That's irrelevant, we're talking reputation.

subsistence234 2y ago

Or am I missing something? C subsystem patches have started to be rejected by Linus because they break Rust builds despite the agreement that this wouldn't happen. That's why Hellwig switched from ignoring Rust patches sent to him for review to NACKing this one. Hellwig did it, from what anyone can tell, to get Linus to publish the actual policy which he still hasn't done yet.

steveklabnik 2y ago
> C subsystem patches have started to be rejected by Linus because they break Rust builds despite the agreement that this wouldn't happen. No. There was one instance of a toolchain issue accidentally including some Rust stuff when Rust was configured off, this was fairly quickly rectified. Linus even said in one of his more recent emails that this happens infrequently, but also, this happens all the time in general, and that’s why linux-next exists. Linus did reaffirm the policy of “C folks are allowed to fully ignore Rust stuff.”