btleplug VS Rust-for-Linux

You're absolutely correct! I mention this elsewhere in the documentation even. Buttplug really is just a userland HID manager at its core. The only specialized part is the context of commands we send to devices.

The original plan (and it may still happen, who knows) was to figure out a way to chop off that top message layer and create a generalized system for doing exactly what you've said. That was going to be called 'deviceplug', and it's why btleplug is under the 'deviceplug' org on github (https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug). I've just never gotten around to it because I'm not quite ready for the additional support burden yet.

All that said, Buttplug is also a haptics experimentation project aimed at finding out what it's like to create a way to communicate about a very specific type of touch via technology and programming. There are specific goals within the project related to that, but the amount of tech required to actually pull that off means I end up with what basically amounts of a fleet management framework. :)

In case someone is curious: https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug/pull/279/files

Is something wrong with https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug or you haven't found it? You could also use bindings to platform libraries like https://github.com/microsoft/windows-rs and https://github.com/rust-mobile/ndk if btleplug doesn't have something fundamental to you.

One of the worst/best parts of buttplug is that I ended up needed to maintain my own Bluetooth LE library: btleplug (https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug).

Worst because working with bluetooth is always THE WORST, best because of the submissions and community that've grown around it.

There's 2 types of PRs to btleplug:

- People going "here's a PR but uh, why is the library named btleplWAIT WHAT"

- People going "here is a PR specifically to fix something in Buttplug thank you"

"In its dev branch"

I've always been annoyed at the cross-platform story for Bluetooth. GATT is one of my favorite protocols because it is so simple, but writing simple code against this simple protocol is _not_ portable:

iOS and macOS have CoreBluetooth, Linux has BlueZ, Windows has Windows.Devices.Bluetooth and Android has android.bluetooth.

I've seen a few projects trying to fix this, like https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug, and I hope one of them becomes production ready.

But, that's an ongoing problem. In terms of "done", I think the next big milestone will be mobile app support. We work on mobile web browsers in a couple of different ways, but Buttplug still needs app support, both native and for things like cordova/react native/etc... The biggest issue there at the moment lies in our bluetooth library (btleplug, https://github.com/deviceplug/btleplug), because getting the FFI via JNI to android is going to suck (even though I can crib off Servo's WebBluetooth impl, which worked on Android).

You're welcome.

> Any concerns of the same kind of thing?

Here's the canonical list: https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux/issues/2

There's a lot, and I don't know the status of many of them, personally. But I don't see anything there that I know is not gonna work out, like for example, they aren't using specialization. Most of it feels like very nuts and bolts codegen options and similar things.

That said, back in August, the Rust Project announced their goals for the second half of this year: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/08/12/Project-goals.html

They say that they're committed to getting this stuff done, and in particular: https://rust-lang.github.io/rust-project-goals/2024h2/rfl_st...

> Closing these issues gets us within striking distance of being able to build the RFL codebase on stable Rust.

So, things sound good, in my mind.

The goal of rust for linux isn't to wholesale translate linux into rust, but simply to be able to write pieces of linux (largely new ones) in rust. I think it's very unlikely anyone (including google) will take on a wholesale translation anytime soon. That said

> It's unlikely that Google has much sway here

Google has helped fund the rust for linux project pretty much from the start [1], they're one of three organizations mentioned on the homepage due to their sponorship [2]. They're actively involved in it, and have already ported their android "binder" driver into it with the intent to ship it in android. This strikes me as a very weird take.

[1] https://www.memorysafety.org/blog/supporting-miguel-ojeda-ru...

[2] https://rust-for-linux.com/

Rust is backwards compatible when you stick to stable features, but the kernel uses unstable features that can and do incur breaking changes.

https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux/issues/2

> How would this work?

Don't know exactly what you're asking.

> And why would it be a better idea?

Poorly written device drivers are a significant attack vector. It's one of the reasons Linux is now exploring using Rust for its own device drivers.[0] You may be asking -- why Rust and not some other language? Rust has many of the performance and interoperability advantages of C and C++, but as noted, makes certain classes of memory safety issues impossible. Rust also has significant mindshare among systems programming communities.

[0]: https://rust-for-linux.com

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