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Rust Coreutils Continues Working Toward 100% GNU Compatibility, Proving Trolls Wrong (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 9 months ago by cm0002@digipres.cafe 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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[–] bitcrafter@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The theoretical concern is that some nefarious company will start making improvements and not contribute them back so that it can have access to (and possibly even sell) its own premium version that takes advantage of the hard work of the community without giving back.

Personally, I am a bit skeptical of this for a couple of reasons. First, I have a really hard time seeing any company care enough about uutils to do this. Second, continually merging changes from an upstream project is a real pain, so there is a strong incentive to make contributions back out of self-interest.

But even to the extent that there is some grounds to be concerned, it is not enough for so many people to contribute so much noise to every single one of these posts whining, as if it is attack on them personally.

[+] Feyd@programming.dev 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This. Licenses are so that trust is not needed and being a good FOSS citizen is expected. That means publishing your code if you fork, giving proper attibution and granting your users the same rights as the original project did.

Something very normal.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 points 9 months ago

Agreed!

[–] bitcrafter@programming.dev -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Okay, but if the developers of uutils do not care about these things, and they would be the ones most hurt because they would not get access to the changes that others are making... why should the rest of us make a big deal over it?

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Because we are users, contributors, packagers, distributors... and if the project is unsustainable and suddenly becomes proprietary that is bad.

Or if the project is included in proprietary systems. Nobody will have the right to get source code then, or in case of GPLv3 even the right to install other software.

Copyleft and GPLv3 grant users the rights to prevent e-waste or replace shitty proprietary software on useful hardware with better one.

Copyleft licenses spread these rights, while permissive ones do nothing apart from handing out software for nothing in return.

[–] bitcrafter@programming.dev -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, in your opinion, should these developers simply stop their work on this project of they are not willing to use the GPL?

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

No, but as they do great work it is a shame that they dont protect it and thereby reduce the protection of every distro shipping them

[–] bitcrafter@programming.dev 0 points 9 months ago

Fair enough. I do actually get the concern, though I think that the threat is being exaggerated. However, I would argue that, if the goal is not to try and get these developers to abandon their efforts, then it does not make sense for every single discussion to get flooded with the same complaints about the license to the point that not much else seems to get talked about.

[–] bitcrafter@programming.dev 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Because it is not my decision as it is not my project, and I do not like to constantly be making big deal about other people's decisions unless there is a significant chance of them having a significantly negative impact on my life, which I do not see in this case.