To me, the two major problems are:
- no namespaces
Someone uploads “serde2”? that’s blocked forever. Someone uploads a typo version of a popular package? Too bad for you, learn how to type.
- the github connection
If you want to contribute to crates.io you’re bound to github. No gitlab, codeberg, gitee, sourcehut, etc.
Not sure if there are any other problems, but those two seem like the biggest things and #1 is AFAIK not something they ever want to change + it would be difficult to as one would need a migration strategy.
there’s https://lib.rs/, never actually used it myself, but it calls itself an alternative to crates.io
Apparently there’s an effort underway. I don’t have any more context than this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38020117
I will say that I actually like the flat namespace, but don’t have a strong opinion
Why should I believe this?
I followed the link in echelon’s HN profile to their GitHub profile. It’s the same name, like you’d expect, but I had to check.
If they were a member of the Rust project, they’d have an entry in the rust-lang/team repository, and they don’t. The fact that they’ve written some code in the Rust language doesn’t automatically make them trustworthy, or give them information about what happens in closed council meetings.
I don’t understand the “serde2” issue. Isn’t “someusername/serde” strictly worse than “serde2”?
GitHub being the only auth provider is something the maintainers wanted to fix, but didn’t have enough bandwidth to implement. I think they would welcome contributions!
If Github isn’t used for source control, why on earth is it the only auth provider?
Why has crates.io given Microsoft the ability to control who can and cannot publish Rust code?
Namespacing is whatever, but IMO the real issue is the disproportionate and unnecessary amount of power given to a company known for pushing monopolies.
Isn’t github used only as the auth provider? It is not using any git features, just leaning on the security guarantees of github. I don’t find this too alarming.
If you want, you can use git links when declaring dependencies in Cargo.toml. So alternative to crates.io is basically any git host already!
Semver checks don’t work with straight git urls, since you can only link to an explicit branch or commit, not a version.
version can be passed with git actually. And it will need to match with the version set in Cargo.toml from the git source.
I wouldn’t call that an alternative to crate registries though (of which, crates.io is only one impl).
Also tangentially related, cargo-vendor is a thing.
Semver strings allows stuff like “version 2.5.x, but below 2.5.6”. Then cargo calculates the best solution for satisfying all dependency specifications from all packages using a single version (if possible).
Specifying a version in addition to the git branch doesn’t help there at all, because you still have to do it manually then.
Isn’t github used only as the auth provider?
Still makes you bound to github. Can’t publish to crates.io without github.
just leaning on the security guarantees of github
What security guarantee does github have? I can create a new account right now with a random email, sign up for crates.io and type-squat a package.
If you want, you can use git links when declaring dependencies in Cargo.toml. So alternative to crates.io is basically any git host already!
Sure, but how do you discover the package? That’s the other function of a registry. Also, I could easily just add another package as a submodule, but that’s not the point.
