> There is nothing wrong with making money off of Rust, and one of the goals of this standardization is to erase doubts that Rust is ready for commercial prime time.
Agreed. After what Oracle has done with Java, I am hesitant when corporations come bearing gifts.
> If you are trying to say that this is a quick cash-grab by Ferrous Systems, you should also consider that their members have been doing a lot of upaid work for a _long_ time for Rust and its community and most of the time without direct monetary benefit.
I am not making any accusations against Ferrous Systems. I have no reason to believe that they are not well-intentioned.
I am just concerned about what might happen to the Rust community when truckloads of money gets involved. Rust has an incredible community and has made rapid progress. I hope that it continues that way.
> Agreed. After what Oracle has done with Java, I am hesitant when corporations come bearing gifts.
I honestly don’t know what to make of that comparison. On one hand, as a sailing fan, I’d love to own a boat competing in the America’s Cup (1), on the other hand I can’t really see why you insult us that way.
On a more serious note: Companies with money will enter (and already have entered) the rust space, but unlike Java which was designed as a proprietary language and never free as open source, the rust language cannot be owned the way oracle owns java. So in that regard I wouldn’t worry. That doesn’t mean that all players will be well intentioned, but the leverage a hostile player can gain is substantially more limited.
(1) The Wannsee certainly would make a great training ground for Team Ferrous!
> I am just concerned about what might happen to the Rust community when truckloads of money gets involved.
Well, either truckloads of money get involved, or the community will fail to grow. I'm sure some people would love to keep the Rust community exactly as they currently enjoy it (for a multitude of different reasons, but I think most of them somewhat selfish), but for Rust to grow, there has to be money involved by the nature of how our economy works.
Either Rust is useful and provides benefit over alternatives, in which case it's also useful and provides benefit for commercial interests, or it isn't.
That isn't to say your concern is entirely unwarranted. It makes sense to be leery about what the money is applied to and how it influences the outcomes, as that isn't in the best interest of the community either.
> I am just concerned about what might happen to the Rust community when truckloads of money gets involved.
Ah okay, I can very well understand that concern.
I'm personally not too worried about it, as I feel like Rust already had a bit of a "truckloads of money" moment with the cryptocurrency hype the last 2 years. During that time that sector probably became the biggest one in terms of number of employees working with Rust full-time. I can't say I noticed any significant effects from that in the Rust community. That might in part be due to the fact that your stereotypical Rust developer is very critical of blockchain technology, but I think the Rust community has fared pretty well in that money influx exercise.
Agreed. After what Oracle has done with Java, I am hesitant when corporations come bearing gifts.
> If you are trying to say that this is a quick cash-grab by Ferrous Systems, you should also consider that their members have been doing a lot of upaid work for a _long_ time for Rust and its community and most of the time without direct monetary benefit.
I am not making any accusations against Ferrous Systems. I have no reason to believe that they are not well-intentioned.
I am just concerned about what might happen to the Rust community when truckloads of money gets involved. Rust has an incredible community and has made rapid progress. I hope that it continues that way.