> "which is actively hostile to a second Rust compiler implementation" - except that isn't true?
Historically the Rust community has been extremely hostile towards gccrs. Many have claimed that the work would be detrimental to Rust as a language since it would split the language in two (despite gccrs constantly claiming they're not trying to do that). I'm not sure if it was an opinion shared by the core team, but if you just browse Reddit and Twitter you would immediately see a bunch of people being outright hostile towards gccrs. I was very happy to see that blog post where the Rust leadership stepped up to endorse it properly.
> Hi folks, because threads on gccrs have gotten detailed in the past, a reminder to please adhere to the subreddit rules by keeping criticism constructive and keeping things in perspective.
The LKML quote is alleging that the upstream language developers (as opposed to random users on Reddit) are opposed to the idea of multiple implementations, which is plainly false, as evidenced by the link to the official blog post celebrating gccrs. Ted T'so is speaking from ignorance here.
I think it’s more pointed towards people like me who do think that gccrs is harmful (I’m not a Rust compiler/language dev - just a random user of the language). I think multiple compiler backends are fine (eg huge fan of rustc_codegen_gcc) but having multiple frontends I think can only hurt the ecosystem looking at how C/C++ have played out vs other languages like Swift, Typescript etc that have retained a single frontend. In the face of rustc_codegen_gcc, I simply see no substantial value add of gccrs to the Rust ecosystem but I see a huge amount of risk in the long term.
> opposed to the idea of multiple implementations, which is plainly false, as evidenced by the link to the official blog post celebrating gccrs. Ted T'so is speaking from ignorance here.
Why use so strong words? Yes, there's clearly a misunderstanding here, but why do we need to use equally negative words towards them? Isn't it more interesting to discuss why they have this impression? Maybe there's something with the communication from the upstream language developers which hasn't been clear enough? It's a blog post which is a few months old so if that's the only signal it's maybe not so strange that they've missed it?
Or maybe they are just actively lying because they have their own agenda. But I don't see how this kind of communication, assuming the worst of the other part, beings us any closer.
I'm not going to mince words here. Ted T'so should know better than to make these sorts of claims, and regardless of where he got the impression from, his confident assertion is trivially refutable, and it's not the job of the Rust project to police whatever incorrect source he's been reading, and they have demonstrably been supportive of the idea of multiple implementations. This wouldn't even be the first alternative compiler! Several Rust compiler contributors have their own compilers that they work on.
The kernel community should demand better from someone in such a position of utmost prominence.
For whatever it's worth, I did believe that some of the Rust team was very hostile towards gccrs, but that behavior has completely changed, and it seems like they're receiving a lot of support these days.
Historically the Rust community has been extremely hostile towards gccrs. Many have claimed that the work would be detrimental to Rust as a language since it would split the language in two (despite gccrs constantly claiming they're not trying to do that). I'm not sure if it was an opinion shared by the core team, but if you just browse Reddit and Twitter you would immediately see a bunch of people being outright hostile towards gccrs. I was very happy to see that blog post where the Rust leadership stepped up to endorse it properly.
Just one reference: In one of the monthly updates that got posted on Reddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1g1343h/an_update_on_...) a moderator had to write this:
> Hi folks, because threads on gccrs have gotten detailed in the past, a reminder to please adhere to the subreddit rules by keeping criticism constructive and keeping things in perspective.