Re: The Case for Rust (in the base system)

On 04Aug24, Poul-Henning Kamp apparently wrote:

> is to work towards a pkg-based distribution of FreeBSD, where nobody

One presumes that in this world, kernel modules would also be delivered as packages. After
all, isn't half the argument for Rust that you can write safer kernel code with it?

So the end-result is a micro-kernel that mostly loads packages from ecosystems. No reason
why that can't work. (As an aside, I'm curious as to what ABI works best in this
scenario. Maybe a JSON message passing micro-kernel?)

Yes, I'm being a tad snarky, but the ecosystem vs language distinction raises the question
as to whether Rust is the one-and-only ecosystem to support or whether it is merely one
amongst many future equals?

PHK may not have meant it, but if a step-function above C is presumed critical, then maybe
an ecosystem model is not such a bad outcome.


Mark.