Direct link to Linus' email: <a href="https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/20/2066" rel="nofollow">https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/20/2066</a>
It's an interesting discussion. There's always a divide when you slowly migrate from one thing to another.<p>What makes this interesting is that the difference between C code an Rust code is not something you can just ignore. You will lose developers who simply don't want or can spend the time to get into the intricacies of a new language. And you will temporarily have a codebase where 2 worlds collide.<p>I wonder how in retrospect they will think about the decisions they made today.
As a C maintainer, you <i>should</i> care how the other side of the interface is implemented even if you're not actively involved in writing that code. I don't think it is reasonable, for software quality reasons, to have a policy where a maintainer can simply pretend the other side doesn't exist.
I get the feeling that, no matter how slow Linus goes, this is going to lead to a split. If Linus eventually pushes through Rust, the old guard will fork to a C-only version, and that won't be good.
Linus said that non-rustacean C programmers cannot veto rust code, but he did not clearly state how it works going the opposite way. It was rustacean-proposed changes on the C side that led to this drama. I don't see much progress here.
I can see only one viable path for Rust folks: Fork the kernel and make whatever mods are needed. It's not Linux anymore, but that's how Linux started from Unix all those years ago.