Speculative: Rust for base system components

[Eric McCorkle]

On 1/2/19 1:29 PM, Cy Schubert wrote:

>> I'm all for discussion and criticism of this, that's why I posted it,
>> but I don't think these kinds of false equivalences are helpful.
> 
> Actually it is helpful. Without a solid proposal of a new feature or 
> userland utility to be imported into base that requires the support of 
> a language not already in base, the implication of the original email 
> starting this thread was to rewrite FreeBSD using rust.

That doesn't represent what I wrote at all, and is bordering on a
strawman argument.  Nobody to my knowledge is suggesting rewriting
everything, nor would that be possible.

> In reality we should rely more on ports. Over the years this business 
> has become more fragmented. Each year we see new languages being 
> developed and used. Importing new shiny objects into base is 
> unsustainable. IMO the momentum is behind containerization, 
> specifically kubernetes and docker-like containers. That is today. The 
> next year or two will introduce new technologies and shiny objects 
> which we will likely need to introduce here to remain relevant. We 
> should be looking to reduce the footprint of base, introduce new 
> technologies in ports (ports are much easier to build from scratch, 
> maintain, and update than base). Additionally the idea of meta-ports 
> that install groups of packages would make building purpose-built 
> systems a breeze for our user base, similar to what anaconda does, like 
> a FreeBSD based LAMP (FAMP) stack package that installs all the 
> necessary bits with one pkg install command.

And that seems to be the point of convergence in all this, which is fine
by me.  I was looking to discuss the options and figure out the best way
forward.

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