Thread by @steveklabnik

I refuse to let Amazon define Rust infoworld.com/article/363300…

At some point, we all have to have a serious conversation about Amazon's involvement in Rust. It's been far too long without me saying this.

Amazon now has:

* Lang team co-lead
* Compiler team co-lead
* decided to not have a Rust Foundation ED, meaning Chair has outsized power in the Foundation

they've also taken steps to marginalize the core team. and some other dirty shit I won't say rn.

the first three though, are undefinable. they're just facts. And now they want to actually take Amazon's principles and claim that they're Rust's.

So, what do we do? Is this okay?

I want big companies to be involved in Rust. I don't want Amazon to go away!

I *do* want them to start playing nice instead of playing badly.

I've tried to get this message across in private. They just don't care.

In the beginning, Rust did have one sole patron: Mozilla. Everyone was uncomfortable with that arrangement, including Mozilla.

We spent years trying to get away from this situation. It had tons of negative effects.

Why are we regressing here?

I know @mjasay left Amazon recently, but note what this article is: it's an article by someone from Amazon talking about how two other people at Amazon are writing Amazon's tenets as Rust's, and that's why Rust is so beloved.

Rust is not beloved because of Amazon. Sorry.

Now, I should also say this: lots of hard workin Rustaceans at Amazon. I like most of you. You're doing good work, and trying to keep doing the right thing.

This isn't about individuals. This is about structure. This is about leadership.

(also, since I pointed him out: the above goes for @mjasay too. Not trying to say he's a terrible person here. I don't think that; I actually respect him quite a bit.)

ah see this is what i mean by "doing things behind the scenes to marginalize the core team"

note that this was also retweeted by the lang team co-lead

a lot of people seem to think the core team is irrelevant, yet somehow worth attacking

the reality is this: the core team *has* become less relevant over time. because the core team used to be the only leadership in the rust project. but that wasn't okay.

we delegated out real, actual leadership powers to the subteams. im on the core team. i don't get to veto language team decisions. that's their role. and i'm glad they have it!

a lot of what core does at this point is to be "the buck stops here." we handle all of the work that's not explicitly delegated to another team.

that work is *never* sexy, and often not able to be made public.

the role of governance has to change as the reality changes. and we've been intensely wondering about what that means for rust governance for like, a long time, actually!

we can have real, upfront conversations about that, and figure out what we as a community want things to be, *or* we can

1. decide to do the work of other teams
2. complain about them in private and then in public

there's been a lot of #2 going on

there is also worse stuff! still not going to talk about that though.

point is: there are bigger and deeper issues here.

to elaborate on #3: The structural issue here is that the foundation decided to forgo extending the interim ED contract while looking for a new ED; this means that the foundation currently does not have one, and we don't know when a new one is coming. 1/2

During that time, the chair of the board has more power than they usually would, and Amazon is chair of the board. 2/2

Oh and one thing I should say too: suggesting that core doesn’t do anything during the same year we managed the implosion of Mozilla and the creation of the foundation is incredibly disrespectful to those on core who did all of that intense work.