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NonStop discussion around adding Rust to Git

The Linux kernel community's discussions about including Rust have gotten a lot of attention, but the kernel is not the only project wrestling with the question of whether to allow Rust. The Git project discussed the prospect in January, and then again at the Git Contributor's Summit in September.

Blau also pointed out some questions that would need answering before the project could consider using Rust: how the language would affect platform support, which parts of Git would be easiest to migrate or extend (as is nature of sprawling mailing list discussions, the participants later touched on both), and how the change would interact with ongoing maintenance efforts. Phillip Wood thought that it would always be possible for communities of interested users to backport their own security fixes, but agreed that adding Rust to the project was a tradeoff: With this discussion failing to reach a firm conclusion either, it appears that the Git project is stuck with an ongoing tension between a small group of users, its legacy of broad support, and its role as core infrastructure on one hand, and increased security, performance, and ease of contribution on the other.

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