Comment by kelnos

> there's no compelling reason that rust has to be the only way to achieve memory safety

I don't think anyone is saying that Rust is the only way to achieve that. It is a way to achieve it, and it's a way that enough people are interested in working on in the context of the Linux kernel.

Ada just doesn't have enough developer momentum and community around it to be suitable here. And even if it did, you still have to pick one of the available choices. Much of that decision certainly is based on technical merits, but there's still enough weight put toward personal preference and more "squishy" measures. And that's fine! We're humans, and we don't make decisions solely based on logic.

> it might do to wait until some other memory safe alternative appears.

Perhaps, but maybe people recognize that it's already late to start making something as critical as the Linux kernel more safe from memory safety bugs, and waiting longer will only exacerbate the problem. Sometimes you need to work with what you have today, not what you hope materializes in the future.