They were just one of the early projects to have a very overbearing code of conduct.

Basically, anyone who interacted with a community even remotely like Linus Torvalds did in his earlier years especially, was put on notice that they were the sort of person who wasn’t welcome.

Maybe Torvalds went too far, maybe not. But removing all highly opinionated brutal honesty from a project is not a good idea in my opinion.

Especially for a project like Rust. A language focused on safety, but the community feels more focused on emotional safety rather than basic information security. I wish there had been some grumpy highly opinionated cypherpunk/infosec sorts of people involved early on.

The Rust community has always focused of feelings over function in ways that feel detrimental for a systems language IMO.

Plus, I’ve always been skeptical of anyone who wants to restrict speech and micromanage the behavior of others. This latest Trademark brouhaha seems like a natural progression of their natural tendencies.