Re: [TECH TOPIC] Rust for Linux

Miguel Ojeda
2021-07-06T18:29:33Z

On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 5:43 PM Laurent Pinchart
<laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com> wrote:
>
> There are lots of core APIs that are used by most drivers and that are
> not subsystem-specific, so those will need to be considered too.

Yes, but those are maintained in the "common"/shared support, e.g.
data structures, sync-related facilities, etc.; and hopefully will be
much better understood by everyone.

> Additionally, even if there's a subsystem maintainer willing to maintain
> a Rust abstraction, it also means that someone doing tree-wide or
> subsystem-wide refactoring will need to pull the maintainer(s) in and
> make it a team project. I really don't see how that can scale, tree-wide
> changes are already very painful.
>
> I'm afraid that doesn't really match how development is done today :-)
> Lots of subsystem-wide refactoring is done by developers who are not
> subsystem maintainers.

What I was saying is that the changes need to go through the
maintainers, which then would know Rust and the abstractions they
maintain.

Of course, somebody wishing to do tree-wide refactoring needs to know
at least a bit of Rust to at least know how to refactor and submit the
code for the maintainers -- but that is a given.

After all, if we are going to have Rust as a second language in the
kernel, we should try to have as many people on board as possible, at
least to some degree, within some reasonable time frame.

Cheers,
Miguel