Steve Litt <slitt@???> writes:
> Rainer Weikusat via Dng said on Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:29:15 +0100
>>Steve Litt <slitt@???> writes:
>
>>> Wait. Did I miss the notice of administrative mandation? Last I
>>> heard, Linus said kernel code could be written in EITHER C or Rust.
>>
>>This is from a LWN article from 12/13/2025 which paraphrased the Linux
>>DRM maintainer (David Arlie) as follows: [...] the subsystem is only
>>""about a year away"" from disallowing new drivers written in C and
>>requiring the use of Rust.
>>
>>https://lwn.net/Articles/1050174/
>
> Well THAT'S interesting. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel
> about all that and the comments. The referenced article and comments
> seem to imply that the long term goal is a pure-Rust kernel and
> drivers.

The long-term goal of the people pushing Rust is pushing Rust. One could
also call it 1970sd, as it's still supposed to sort out turf wars of the
1970s. And to get rid of dynamic linking, obviously, because that's this
awful new-fangled 1980s invention which lets user CHANGE (Gaaaaahhh!)
running code and nobody hates change more than those who want to force
it on others.

>>No idea if the link can be accessed w/o a subscription. This has
>>greatly reduced my enthusiasm for this language because it if was
>>really good for something and not just some people's techno-partisan
>>"true love", such mandates wouldn't be necessary.
>
> They'd be necessary if long term you want your kernel and drivers to be
> written in only one language. Until 5 years ago, you could only do
> Kernel/Driver work in C. Does that mean that C must be bad because if
> it weren't, peoples' "true love" would make such a mandate
> unnecessary?

Some time in the 1990s, someone chose C as programming language for a
hobby project. It wasn't mandated by a bunch of solutions pushers
working for US megacorps. You have your history somewhat wrong.

> Of course, more to your point, with an Ada-only kernel, the developers
> of the Rust compiler would have an insane amount of power.

,,, and on to one of those tiresome political arguments. Not. I
originally considered Rust and interesting language because they
actually had a new idea for memory management, despite piggy-backing
MUST GET RID OF DYNAMIC LINKING!!1 onto that dented my hopes somewhat.

The abovementioned makes it pretty clear that the very people pushing
Rust are convinced that it cannot successfully compete in a marketplace
of idead on merit.

Hence, end of the story, insofar I'm concerned. They must know this
better than I do.

NB: I will not participarte in any kind of "My programming language is
longer than your programming language!" discussion.