Behold, a Linux maintainer openly admitting to attempting to sabotage the entire Rust for Linux project:
https://lwn.net/ml/all/20250131075751.GA16720@lst.de/
The good news is this doesn’t affect drm/asahi, our GPU driver. The bad news is it does affect all the other drivers we’re (re)writing in Rust, two so far with a third one coming.
Another choice quote, calling R4L “cancer”: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250128092334.GA28548@lst.de/
Personally, I would consider this grounds for removal of Christoph from the Linux project on Code of Conduct violation grounds, but sadly I doubt much will happen other than draining a lot of people’s energy and will to continue the project until Linus says “fuck you” or something.
As for how to move forward, if I were one of the Rust maintainers, I would just merge the patch (which does not touch code formally maintained by the dissenter). Either Linus takes the pull, and whatever Christoph says is irrelevant, or he doesn’t, and R4L dies. Everything else is a waste of everyone’s time and energy.
Edit: Sent in my 2 cents: https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2b9b75d1-eb8e-494a-b05f-59f75c92e6ae@marcan.st/T/#m1944b6d485070970e359bbc7baa71b04c86a30af
I get the feeling that it would be more feasible to build a separate kernel at this point. Its a lot of work, but adding another option to the comparatively small array of kernel options that we have might actually be a good idea -and in doing so, it word demonstrate r4l’s willingness to maintain the project long-term. There’s no need for this pissy behaviour, and there’s no need to take the drama to social media.