"Their boss" - I'm not sure that boss is best word here.
"did ask for it" - did he? Because from my perspective it looks more like he gave the bone for corporations so they will shut up for rust in kernel. After some time it will end up "Sorry but rust did not have enough support - maintainers left and there were issues with language - well back to C"
I don’t think that’s an accurate way to describe what happened, no. He seems to be enthusiastic about it and to genuinely want it to succeed.
> "A lot of people actually think we're somewhat too risk averse," said Torvalds. "So when it comes to Rust, it's been discussed for multiple years by now. It's getting to the point where real soon now, we will actually have it merged in the kernel. Maybe next release."…
> "Before the Rust people get all excited," the Linux kernel creator and chief said. "Right? You know who you are. To me, it's a trial run, right? We want to have [Rust's] memory safety. So there are real technical reasons why Rust is a good idea in the kernel…”
> “And hopefully, it works out, and people have been working on it a lot, so I really hope it works out…”
Last September he was still insisting he thinks the project will not fail, and he was not exactly subtle in his criticism of maintainers who refuse to engage with it in good faith.
> "Clearly, there are people who just don't like the notion of Rust, and having Rust encroach on their area.
> "People have even been talking about the Rust integration being a failure … We've been doing this for a couple of years now so it's way too early to even say that, but I also think that even if it were to become a failure – and I don't think it will – that's how you learn," he said.
> "So I see the whole Rust thing as positive, even if the arguments are not necessarily always [so]."…
> With impressive diplomacy, considering his outbursts of years past, Torvalds went on, "There's a lot of people who are used to the C model, and they don't necessarily like the differences... and that's ok.
But yeah, I still don't think it's all that inaccurate: He may not have wanted it to fail, and still not think it's a technical failure... But socially? Still seems possible he'd be starting to think that while the Rust language per se is a technical success, all the drama surrounding the integration of it into Linux means that that is turning out to be a social failure.
(Or maybe I'm just projecting because that is what it looks like to me.)
Their boss, however, did ask for it, so yes, they do have an obligation to be welcoming to it.