Comment by actinium226
10 months ago
> I think you're discounting the very real damage that would be done by [Linux a project controlled by Linus and a community] being replaced by [Linux a project controlled by Google/Samsung/Redhat/Microsoft.]
(Brackets added for clarity)
Isn't the current Linux already Linus + communities + companies?
More to the point, any two such projects would quickly diverge. Once a particular piece of Linux is reimplemented in Rust, if the C version adds a feature it is no longer as simple as applying a patch to keep in sync.
> Isn't the current Linux already Linus + communities + companies?
Absolutely. To that point the companies I listed are the ones that I'm aware of employing kernel developers who work specifically on rust in linux.
The control of the project is in Linus's/community hands though, not corporate ones, and I think that's a good thing.
> More to the point, any two such projects would quickly diverge. Once a particular piece of Linux is reimplemented in Rust, if the C version adds a feature it is no longer as simple as applying a patch to keep in sync.
I don't think so. Linux is a huge modular system, and no one is really interested in rewriting the core components of it at this point. Nor maintaining their own copies of components that some other company is responsible for (like graphics drivers). Until and unless it became the dominant fork I'd expect that they'd keep merging in the mainline branch and updating their things as necessary.
This is already how projects like Android work.