Only eight people remain in the core team around Rust for Linux… Miguel Ojeda therefore launched a survey among kernel developers, including those outside the Rust community, and presented some of the more important voices in his FOSDEM talk. The overall mood towards Rust remains favorable, especially as Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman are convinced of the necessity of Rust integration. This is less about rapid progress and more about finding new talent for kernel development in the future.
The reaction was mostly positive, judging by Ojeda’s slides:

– “2025 will be the year of Rust GPU drivers…” — Daniel Almedia

– “I think the introduction of Rust in the kernel is one of the most exciting development experiments we’ve seen in a long time.” — Andrea Righi

– “[T]he project faces unique challenges. Rust’s biggest weakness, as a language, is that relatively few people speak it. Indeed, Rust is not a language for beginners, and systems-level development complicates things even more. That said, the Linux kernel project has historically attracted developers who love challenging software — if there’s an open source group willing to put the extra effort for a better OS, it’s the kernel devs.” — Carlos Bilbao

– “I played a little with [Rust] in user space, and I just absolutely hate the cargo concept… I hate having to pull down other code that I do not trust. At least with shared libraries, I can trust a third party to have done the build and all that… [While Rust should continue to grow in the kernel], if a subset of C becomes as safe as Rust, it may make Rust obsolete…” Steven Rostedt

Rostedt wasn’t sure if Rust would attract more kernel contributors, but did venture this opinion. “I feel Rust is more of a language that younger developers want to learn, and C is their dad’s language.”

But still “contention exists within the kernel development community between those pro-Rust and -C camps,” argues The New Stack, citing the latest remarks from kernel maintainer Christoph Hellwig (who had earlier likened the mixing of Rust and C to cancer). Three days later Hellwig reiterated his position again on the Linux kernel mailing list:

“Every additional bit that another language creeps in drastically reduces the maintainability of the kernel as an integrated project. The only reason Linux managed to survive so long is by not having internal boundaries, and adding another language completely breaks this. You might not like my answer, but I will do everything I can do to stop this. This is NOT because I hate Rust. While not my favourite language it’s definitively one of the best new ones and I encourage people to use it for new projects where it fits. I do not want it anywhere near a huge C code base that I need to maintain.”

But the article also notes that Google “has been a staunch supporter of adding Rust to the kernel for Linux running in its Android phones.”
The use of Rust in the kernel is seen as a way to avoid memory vulnerabilities associated with C and C++ code and to add more stability to the Android OS. “Google’s wanting to replace C code with Rust represents a small piece of the kernel but it would have a huge impact since we are talking about billions of phones,” Ojeda told me after his talk.

In addition to Google, Rust adoption and enthusiasm for it is increasing as Rust gets more architectural support and as “maintainers become more comfortable with it,” Ojeda told me. “Maintainers have already told me that if they could, then they would start writing Rust now,” Ojeda said. “If they could drop C, they would do it….”

Amid the controversy, there has been a steady stream of vocal support for Ojeda. Much of his discussion also covered statements given by advocates for Rust in the kernel, ranging from lead developers of the kernel and including Linux creator Linus Torvalds himself to technology leads from Red Hat, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Harnessing the plane’s momentum, [skydiver Max Manow] soared out of the canyon, embarking on what he calls his “endless skydive”, a manoeuvre that potentially could be done continuously without him ever needing to land…

After exiting a helicopter, he manoeuvred his wingsuit to close the gap with a nosediving Cessna 182, piloted by Luke Aikins. Precision was key: Manow attached himself to a hook on the aircraft as the plane descended, allowing him to ascend back to a safe altitude of 2,500 feet before releasing into another freefall… Manow spent five months training, including sessions in a Stockholm wind tunnel, to master the techniques needed for mid-air connection. Meanwhile, Aikins modified his aircraft to ensure the feat was safe and repeatable.
Skydiver Max Manow’s goal was to develop a manoeuvre that could potentially be repeated an infinite number of times without ever having to land. Manow’s mid-air manoeuvre opens the door to a new vision of skydiving, where athletes could remain airborne without ever needing to land. Reflecting on the experience, Manow said: “Who knows where this will take the future of the sport?”

“If that wasn’t enough adrenaline for you,” writes New Atlas, “a previous bonkers wingsuit stunt from 2017 is equally jaw dropping, in which a pair of skydivers BASE-jumped off a mountain summit, and entered a passing airplane.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business’s website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived webpage. Google didn’t launch Gemini until 2023, meaning Gemini couldn’t have generated the website description as depicted in the ad.

The site Futurism calls the situation “beyond bizarre,” asking why Google doesn’t seem to trust its own technology.
Either Google faked the ad entirely, or prompted its AI to generate the web page’s existing copy word-for-word, or the AI was prompted to come up with original copy and instead copied the old version. In the publishing industry, that’s referred to as “plagiarism.”

And ironically if Gemini did plagiarize that text, the text that it plagiarized is also inaccurate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“At the end, I present ways to ensure that code is contemporary, rather than relying on outdated, unsafe, and hard-to-maintain techniques: guidelines and profiles.”

To help developers focus on effective use of contemporary C++ and avoid outdated “dark corners” of the language, sets of guidelines have been developed. Here I focus on the C++ Core guidelines that I consider the most ambitious… My principal aim is a type-safe and resource-safe use of ISO standard C++. That is:

– Every object is exclusively used according to its definition
– No resource is leaked
This encompasses what people refer to as memory safety and much more. It is not a new goal for C++. Obviously, it cannot be achieved for every use of C++, but by now we have years of experience showing that it can be done for modern code, though so far enforcement has been incomplete… When thinking about C++, it is important to remember that C++ is not just a language but part of an ecosystem consisting of implementations, libraries, tools, teaching, and more.
WG21 (and others) are working on “profiles” to enforce guidelines (though they’re “not yet available, except for experimental and partial versions”). But Stroustrup writes that the C++ Core Guidelines “use a strategy known as subset-of-superset.”

First: extend the language with a few library abstractions: use parts of the standard library and add a tiny library to make use of the guidelines convenient and efficient (the Guidelines Support Library, GSL).
Next: subset: ban the use of low-level, inefficient, and error-prone features.
What we get is “C++ on steroids”: Something simple, safe, flexible, and fast; rather than an impoverished subset or something relying on massive run-time checking. Nor do we create a language with novel and/or incompatible features. The result is 100% ISO standard C++. Messy, dangerous, low-level features can still be enabled and used when needed.
Stroustrup writes that the C++ Core Guidelines focus on rules “we hope that everyone eventually could benefit from.”

No uninitialized variables
No range or nullptr violations
No resource leaks
No dangling pointers
No type violations
No invalidation

Bjarne Stroustrup answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2014…

Read more of this story at Slashdot.