Speculative: Rust for base system components

[Kristof Provost]

> On 4 Jan 2019, at 05:22, Enji Cooper <yaneurabeya at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jan 3, 2019, at 04:46, Eric McCorkle <eric at metricspace.net> wrote:
>> 
>> 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.
> 
> Going back to my previous statement, I think writing a service monitor (to work alongside init and rc) in modern C++/rust would be a good item to undertake.
> 
> I’d be willing to do this with someone else, as a research project/to demo how rust could be used.


I think that’s an excellent idea, and would be interested in trying to help out with it. 

Regards,
Kristof