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Rust Coreutils Continues Working Toward 100% GNU Compatibility, Proving Trolls Wrong (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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Sylvestre Ledru who serves as the lead developer of the uutils project for the Rust Coreutils implementation presented at FOSDEM 2026 this weekend on this initiative. Ledru has spoken at FOSDEM in prior years on Rust Coreutils and this year's talk focused primarily on Ubuntu 25.10's adoption of it in place of GNU Coreutils.

Ledru's presentation covered the progress made on Rust Coreutils in recent times and Ubuntu 25.10's uptake of Rust Coreutils and continuing that for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. While some bugs have been found as a result of it, they have been fixed rather quickly. Ledru's presentation also points out some of the popular trolling around Rust Coreutils and ultimately how many of those commenters have been proven wrong

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[–] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

It's not about any of us enjoying the license*, it's about preserving the integrity of free software. It's both flattering and disturbing that core utils is popular enough that people have decided to give them away to anyone who would want to take them without ever contributing back. If those people are found out there will be no legal recourse. Those Rust rewrites would inevitably be made proprietary without any credit for the authors.

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    First GNU coreutils is going to remain GPL-licensed, so nothing that already exists is being given away; the only thing that is happening is that some people have decided to write brand new code. (And it is worth noting that GPL only says that if you share the binaries, you have to share the source code; if your changes are only used internally, you do not have to contribute them back, though you probably want to do so since it makes your life easier down the road when you want to use newer version of upstream.)

    Second, what scenario exactly is it that you are worried about? I want a specific and plausible answer, not just vague allusions.

    Finally, if the Rust authors are fine with the possibility that someone will use their code in this way, then who are we to tell them to stop their development when we can continue to use GNU coreutils?

    You did not answer my question, and I think it is an important one so I will repeat it: should they abandon the project if they are unwilling to use your preferred license?

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I wrote this before I realized that you don't actually care about the answer, you just want people to shut up about it, so sorry. If you want somebody to do the work you'll have to do it yourself now. You've been given plenty of examples in this thread already

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I have not been given a specific example of a scenario involving uutils, I have only been told about scenarios for unrelated and very different projects, and the difference between the situations is significant enough that you can't simply point to them and declare that your point has automatically been proven. In fact, I would argue that uutils is such a different case that it is implausible that such a scenario could occur and become a big problem.

    And yes, people stopping complaining about work being done on a project they are not involved with in every single post discussing it would be a perfectly fine outcome for me. But if they are not going to do that, then I would also be happy with getting my questions answered because I believe that they are relevant.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    I think the biggest point you may be missing here is if you start re-writing GNU/Linux (which is what uutils is the first step in doing) with an MIT license, you start making reasons for commercial entities that contribute back out of obligation to stop supporting upstream free software. This is a no brainer to me. As to whether or not anybody should stop writing uutils, the answer is **obviously not. ** The license, however, is free game for scrutiny

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Okay, but is this group trying to re-write all of the GPL software in the Linux ecosystem with an MIT license? I ask this because I think that the words "first step" are doing a lot of the lifting in your argument.

    And just to be clear, my objection is not to people disagreeing with the license; in fact, as I have said elsewhere--though I hardly expect you to have read all of my comments here!--I think that the underlying criticism is actually reasonable, I just also think that the extent of the concern is exaggerated in practice in this specific case (which is why I keep trying to pin people down on specifics rather than generalities). Again, my objection is that people feel the need to post the same inane comments with varying degree of toxicity (such referring to them as using a "cuck" license) complaining about it in every single post.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago*

    Yeah I don't toxicity either it helps nobody. But if you would allow me to be a little vulgar, here's a quick attempt to aggregate why the legal side of GPL has been important:

    https://claude.ai/share/ad5124a7-ddad-4ec8-8b4f-d270242dcf56

    Search engines take a bunch of time and I gotta keep parenting.

    Also* it took decades for GNU/Linux to accrue enough momentum to get to a point where it is today: a commercially viable cloud powerhouse. It didn't get here by letting anybody/everybody just do what they want with the software. These small flights accumulate to protect an entire ecosystem of beloved software, which is why many of us feel the need to use the only voice we have. I don't think for sure that anybody wants to replace Linux with a permission version but the benefits for greedy corporations to see that happen is pretty clear. Especially when people are willing to start doing that for free

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