From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from perceval.ideasonboard.com (perceval.ideasonboard.com [213.167.242.64]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4AA3E168 for ; Tue, 6 Jul 2021 15:43:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pendragon.ideasonboard.com (62-78-145-57.bb.dnainternet.fi [62.78.145.57]) by perceval.ideasonboard.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B7256A5E; Tue, 6 Jul 2021 17:43:01 +0200 (CEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=ideasonboard.com; s=mail; t=1625586181; bh=AAWavSA22oqEefoaHFLajadc0dZlq4L/tHojjc2loNw=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=HHm0ClxBX/F3TAImiAAFMolSzkp/OTRooG5Ggbp2d1Q1DMn5k+Ej1Dogd8WYrC//I elZmUSVXWC68PCV46wTDFxtl9nbRRaGehq1IVWBhlw1Lk6TgdZHYi05sHCJa31FShB Kf1peqVfhVeFfVCnXFsqyrQE4yEqs+xStSGvjHbU= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2021 18:42:18 +0300 From: Laurent Pinchart To: Miguel Ojeda Cc: Sasha Levin , Linus Walleij , Leon Romanovsky , ksummit@lists.linux.dev Subject: Re: [TECH TOPIC] Rust for Linux Message-ID: References: Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: On Tue, Jul 06, 2021 at 05:33:42PM +0200, Miguel Ojeda wrote: > On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 5:03 PM Sasha Levin wrote: > > > > Does this mean that anyone who wishes to modify these C APIs must also > > know Rust to fix up those abstractions too? > > Please see my answer to James and Leon, i.e. if we have abstractions > for a particular subsystem, it should mean somebody is happy to write, > use and maintain them. There are lots of core APIs that are used by most drivers and that are not subsystem-specific, so those will need to be considered too. Additionally, even if there's a subsystem maintainer willing to maintain a Rust abstraction, it also means that someone doing tree-wide or subsystem-wide refactoring will need to pull the maintainer(s) in and make it a team project. I really don't see how that can scale, tree-wide changes are already very painful. > That means that, yes, for subsystems that have Rust abstractions, if > you want to touch the C API, you also need to do so for the Rust > abstractions. But for any heavy refactor, I would expect maintainers > being the ones doing it, or at least helping to do so if somebody else > wants to change something in the C side and does not know how to > update the Rust side. I'm afraid that doesn't really match how development is done today :-) Lots of subsystem-wide refactoring is done by developers who are not subsystem maintainers. -- Regards, Laurent Pinchart