> Since when is Rust a requirement to help Linux development?
It's not and it shouldn't be, but it is most definitely required if you want to criticize it's integration into the kernel due to its supposed flaws/merits in a "technical" discussion.
Nobody is forcing anyone to learn rust, the RiL folks are fine with maintaining bindings and handling the fallout of C API changes. They didn't even get to say that, because they were shouted at for asking a question.
> If you want to introduce Rust into Linux, you learn C, you learn Linux, you add and maintain whatever you want.
Which is basically exactly what the RiL community is doing. In the posted video you can see them TRYING their best to learn about the undocumented invariants of a C API and getting nothing but flak for it for completely made up reasons. I might be hard to understand, but many of the strongest advocates of rust know C well and are opposed to using it themselves for good reasons.
The folks maintaining C API don't have to care much about the rust part, except maybe giving a friendly heads-up when they change API's they depend on, like you would in any kernel development work where you are impacting another subsystem.
Apparently this is too much to ask from some of these C grandpas.
While these guys have undoubtedly made great contributions to Linux and FOSS and I'll be forever thankful for that, some of their behavior towards the RiL community has been appalling and petty. They have been resistant to any sort of change, even if it does not impact them at all, are quick to criticize without any attempt at understanding the efforts and benefits of Rust integration or even making any technically coherent argument. Constructive criticism and open discussion is important, but it should be based on accurate information and a willingness to learn instead of knee-jerk reactions and reacting to people wanting to learn about the API of your subsystem with outright and unwarranted hostility.
The rust guys were just asking for semantic information about the current C apis so they could try to encode them into the type system.
All they got in response to that were made up problems of them supposedly forcing everyone to adopt their religion, rust being too OOP or other nitpicks that had nothing to do with the issue the presenters were trying to talk about.
Nobody even answered their questions, people which obviously didn't even look at rust for more than an hour gave their opinion on why what they're doing is bad and destined to fail. It was rude, tone-deaf and not a single technically sound argument was actually made.
I love linux and I'm fine with the maintainers deciding to use C if they want to, but the behavior by the old guard here was actually appalling and reeks of deep insecurity and inability to communicate.