Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Rust block device driver API and null block driver

From: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
To: Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@acm.org>
Cc: "Andreas Hindborg" <nmi@metaspace.dk>,
	"Jens Axboe" <axboe@kernel.dk>, "Christoph Hellwig" <hch@lst.de>,
	"Keith Busch" <kbusch@kernel.org>,
	"Damien Le Moal" <Damien.LeMoal@wdc.com>,
	"Hannes Reinecke" <hare@suse.de>,
	"linux-block@vger.kernel.org" <linux-block@vger.kernel.org>,
	"Andreas Hindborg" <a.hindborg@samsung.com>,
	"Niklas Cassel" <Niklas.Cassel@wdc.com>,
	"Greg KH" <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	"Miguel Ojeda" <ojeda@kernel.org>,
	"Alex Gaynor" <alex.gaynor@gmail.com>,
	"Wedson Almeida Filho" <wedsonaf@gmail.com>,
	"Boqun Feng" <boqun.feng@gmail.com>,
	"Gary Guo" <gary@garyguo.net>,
	"Björn Roy Baron" <bjorn3_gh@protonmail.com>,
	"Benno Lossin" <benno.lossin@proton.me>,
	"Alice Ryhl" <aliceryhl@google.com>,
	"Chaitanya Kulkarni" <chaitanyak@nvidia.com>,
	"Luis Chamberlain" <mcgrof@kernel.org>,
	"Yexuan Yang" <1182282462@bupt.edu.cn>,
	"Sergio González Collado" <sergio.collado@gmail.com>,
	"Joel Granados" <j.granados@samsung.com>,
	"Pankaj Raghav (Samsung)" <kernel@pankajraghav.com>,
	"Daniel Gomez" <da.gomez@samsung.com>,
	"open list" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	"rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org" <rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org>,
	"lsf-pc@lists.linux-foundation.org"
	<lsf-pc@lists.linux-foundation.org>,
	"gost.dev@samsung.com" <gost.dev@samsung.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] Rust block device driver API and null block driver
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 19:12:21 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <ZfH6lTDQygFd1hz-@casper.infradead.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <855a006d-5afc-4f70-90a9-ec94c0414d4f@acm.org>

On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 11:02:23AM -0700, Bart Van Assche wrote:
> On 3/13/24 04:05, Andreas Hindborg wrote:
> > This is the second version of the Rust block device driver API and the Rust null
> > block driver. The context and motivation can be seen in cover letter of the RFC
> > v1 [1]. If more context is required, a talk about this effort was recorded at
> > LPC [2]. I hope to be able to discuss this series at LSF this year [3].
> 
> Memory safety may land in C++ in the near future (see also
> https://herbsutter.com/2024/03/). If memory-safe C++ or memory-safe C
> would be adopted in the kernel, it would allow writing memory-safe
> drivers without having to add complicated bindings between existing C
> code and new Rust code. Please do not take this as personal criticism -
> I appreciate the effort that has been spent on coming up with great
> Rust bindings for the Linux kernel block layer.

You know, this reminds me of when I was at Intel working on NVMe.
We had a product all ready to ship and a manager suggested that we delay
shipping it until the SCSI-over-PCI standard was finished and ratified
so that the same piece of silicon could support both.

Fortunately, said manager was overruled, but it's a great example of
how this kind of FUD can actually work.