Alex Gaynor recently announced he is formally stepping down as one of the maintainers of the Rust for Linux kernel code with the removal patch now queued for merging in Linux 6.19.
Alex Gaynor was one of the original developers to experiment with Rust code for Linux kernel modules. He’s drifted away from Rust Linux kernel development for a while due to lack of time and is now formally stepping down as a listed co-maintainer of the Rust code. After Wedson Almeida Filho stepped down last year as a Rust co-maintainer, this now leaves Rust For Linux project leader Miguel Ojeda as the sole official maintainer of the code while there are several Rust code reviewers.
There’s a lot here that I could comment on, but I’m particularly fascinated that you make a big deal about const by default.
First of all, it’s not particularly good evidence that rust is functional, you could just as easily have a const-by-default java or c. Rust still has mutable data structures which is decidedly non-functional. I do actually think that rust is more inspired by fp than a lot of other languages so it’s not even that you’re completely wrong here, it’s just an odd example.
Secondly, do you actually think that const variables is a bad default? Personally I find that it makes it code easier to read when the author is explicit that a variable is going to be mutated down the line because it makes the intention clearer. It also makes it easier for the compiler to make certain optimizations which is significant in a low-level language.