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I’m not sure why they feel it’s Linus’ responsibility to make Rust happen in the kernel. I’m certainly not happy someone is being harassed, but none of this is the fault of the Linux Foundation or the people that have been working on the kernel for decades.
If Rust is going to happen, then it’ll happen. Or fork it and make a Rust Linux with blackjack and hookers, and boy, will everyone left behind feel silly that they didn’t jump on the bandwagon. But nobody has to make your dreams their focus or even interact with it if they don’t want to. And these social media outbursts aren’t accomplishing what they think they’re accomplishing.
I’m not placing blame on the Linux Foundation, Linus, or anyone else for that matter. However, I believe that if Linus has publicly endorsed the use of Rust in the kernel, that decision is already largely set in motion. On the other hand, if the community collectively opposes the integration of Rust with C and no action is taken to address these problems, and everyone say no, then there is little to no reason to make the initial statement.
Much of the work being produced by Rust developers seems to struggle, often because it’s not made in C and because of maintainers saying “No I don’t want any rust code near my C code”.
I recognize that there are various technical factors influencing this decision, but ultimately it was the creator’s choice to support it.
Today, it is practically impossible to survive being a significant Linux maintainer or cross-subsystem contributor if you’re not employed to do it by a corporation. An interviewer to the Linux dev that’s mentioned in the article: “So what did you do next to try to convince the Linux kernel devs of the need for more focus on end-users?”
I appears as if Linux is a nest that is not built with a consistent set of user-centric principles. Instead, it seems that each part of the nest is built with a specific corporation or project in mind.
Assuming I’m right that Linux is built with project-based thinking and not product-based thinking, I do wonder what a user-centric Linux or another user-centric FLOSS OS would be like, an OS that is so smoothly built that users come to think of it not as an OS for tech-savvy people, but an obvious alternative that you install immediately after getting a computer.
If Linux is indeed built with project-based thinking, then I wonder why that is. The uncharitable explanation is that someone doesn’t want Linux to have a MacOS-like smooth and gorgeous experience. If you don’t think MacOS is smooth and gorgeous, I’ll address that.
I know some people have suffered immensely with Apple products not only because Apple builds devices that can’t be repaired, but because of things simply not working. However, there are many people who love Apple. That’s the kind of passionate advocacy that I would love to see in Linux, and not just around freedom and value-based judgements. I want Linux to be thought of as the least-friction tool for professional or recreational use. I want people to think of Linux as gorgeous and usable.
Of course, we can apply Hanlon’s razor to this situation (“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by [ignorance or lack of skill or practice].”). Managing a product is difficult. Managing a community is difficult. When the nest’s design is not built by a team constantly seeking to care about users, but instead by a bunch of users pecking into the nest until their corner is shaped the way they want, it’s not surprising to see a lack of user-centricity.
Don’t desktop environments e.g., GNOME, KDE, fit the bill here? Sure they have their problems, but they are IMO about as polished as macOS or Windows.
I agree that GNOME and KDE are gorgeous and very polished in many ways. However, I have had some problems in GNOME, Fedora, or Open Suse:
- fractional scaling is not immediately available in Fedora or OpenSuse, at least to users who don’t know how to use the terminal [Edit: Thanks, DannyBoys for pointing out that Ubuntu may have fractional scaling enabled by default and that experimental fractional scaling on GNOME can be activated, at a battery cost]
- the track-pad two-finger scrolling is painful (compared to a Mac) to me and to people who have used my laptop with Fedora or OpenSuse
- sometimes it’s hard for me to get software, especially outside of .debs. For example, in Fedora I had trouble getting Signal Desktop installed from a source that I felt comfortable with (maybe this speaks to my ignorance in how Fedora packages are set up and distributed more than the reality of insecurity, but even this is part of the issue: I couldn’t find any reassurance). To be fair, Open Suse gave me that reassurance, because I understood that YAST was somehow more directly tied to the source (I could be wrong, but that was my impression). However, YAST’s software download software is a far cry from the kind of UX that the GNOME Software app is or the Apple App Store.
Despite these problems, I do have to say that GNOME is absolutely gorgeous. It’s precisely the kind of user-centricity that I want to see in Linux.
However, the end-users aren’t the only users. There are also developers! For example, I remember listening to the developer of the Mojo language talking with Richard Feldman, and the developer said that the development of the Swift language made it clear to him that Apple is aggressively user-centric. I don’t doubt that there are many problems with Swift as with Apple products in general, but I don’t see that kind of discourse in Linux coming from the main maintainers. Instead, there seems to be a vanguard arguing for a better developer experience (such as writing kernel code in Rust), and they find loads of friction. Heck, key developers are leaving Linux!
Edit: Clarified what is strictly my interpretation.
congratulations
none of that is true
I’m sorry for having said something untrue. For example, DannyBoy points out that GNOME and whatever Ubuntu uses do have fractional scaling.
However, is my experience untrue? Was I lying when I said that my track-pad two-finger scrolling is frustrating? Furthermore, it’s not unusual for people at work to try my track-pad and it being way too sensitive or too un-sensitive, but no in between.
Was I lying when I said that, for me, it’s hard to get software? Was I lying when I said that maybe this is a skill issue on my part, but even that is indicative of a lack of easy ways of getting reassurance in the way that Apple makes it easy to find software in their App Store?
Was I lying when I said that, to me, GNOME is gorgeous?
Was the creator of the Mojo language lying when he recounted his experience developing Swift?
Was I lying when I said that developers are leaving Linux?
GNOME is not user-centric. GNOME is GNOME-centric.
I read the “thin blue line” email and it seems… reasonable and sensible? And seeing how he is so appaled by it makes me question his judgement a bit.
I usually see “thin blue line” (and the flag) used by reactionaries, racists, and white nationalists. Especially since BLM. Don’t know what sort of politics Ts’o has, other than he’s probably not an anarchist (ACAB!), but I guess (benefit of the doubt and all) he could be some ignorant lib with a head full of copaganda, so getting out the code of conduct for racist dogwhistles might be a bit premature.
It comes from The Thin Red Line, which is about some Scottish regiment standing up to a Russian cavalry charge. Even if you don’t know that, it seems quite obviously a military metaphor, and that indicates a militaristic view of what policing should be like, veneration of the police as heroes, and total ignorance about what the police actually are and do.
Linux
A few months ago (Oct 18 2024) Linus and his sidekick signing the kernel, not only admitted they were going to comply with US Stat.Dep. doctrine and remove developers (on long term good standing) on the basis of nationality and national origin of the employers, they exploded into a rant, clearly admitting to being nationalist and in distrorting history to fit their rhetoric. In greenwashing nationalism (you can say racism underlying this national hate speech) into the base of most open and free code, nationalism now is not free as in beer it is free as in “freedom”? This is as large of a difference as socialism and ethno-socialism.
The linux community … the end user … DOESN’T give a damn, only wants the latest and badest of development in his gaming machine.
Once you make a slip and slide exception you can’t prevent any more in the future. First will be “justified nationalism”, then “not so justified racism”, then “sexism”, then will be the gas chambers for anyone who forks anything away from Führera (Fedora + Führer).
If using any kernel later than 10 18 2024 I see it as the nationalist/racist fork. I expect the original to continue by developers who don’t use race/ethnicity/gender as a basis for accepting/rejecting contributors.
Are you referring to the time they kicked out a bunch of people employed by the companies associated with the Russian government and that are under direct sanctions for supporting the war?
People are not under sanctions, and no linux developer worked for the Russian government, and since when has a war affected who works on what open source project. There are wars all over the place all the damn time …
I am not talking about the sanctions, I am talking about the additional remarks on how nationalist and racist both the leaders of the project appeared to be from their statements.
Companies are under sanctions. Companies that are connected to the Russian government. Government that is actively wages a terrible unjust war. A war that shouldn’t happen.
People who are working in those companies were banned for the duration of them working for and supporting companies that are under sanctions.
If that’s a problem for you you are being obtuse either on purpose or, I hope, because you’re underinformed.This war was forced into Russia due to the blocking and surrounding it with NATO bases clearly against it, and by trying to block and substitute its primary exports to EU.
The violent overthrow of the then democratic government in Ukraine, the arming, training, and directing a Neo-Nazi para-military unit to take over, after forcing half the political parties in being illegal, had nothing to do with Russia. If there is someone underinformed, confused, and lacking historical facts it is not me, and better change your arrogant tone if you seriously want to discuss something and not just throw propaganda mud.
.ml
Oh, here it is. I was waiting when the pretense will go away. 15 рублей получишь в кассе.
