Maybe coreutils is so old that most security vulnerabilities was solved before CVE even existed. But I think this is also a good argument why we are replacing a solid piece of C code to Rust just because it is "memory safe" and then have lots of CVEs related to things like TOCTOUs (that Rust will not save you).
Other than security, Rust brings major improvement to the tooling and may help bring fresh members that wouldn't want to contribute to C code. I understand why some projects go that route
But it loses old members who don't program in rust, already know the projects, all the reasons of why "this thing" was done "that way". and introduces a new set of bugs, plus now you have two versions of the same thing to maintain.
Yes, you can go further, possibly faster. OTOH, nothing replaces experience and in-depth knowledge. GNU Coreutils embodies that knowledge and experience. uutils has none, and just tries to distill it with tests against the GNU one.
...and they get 44 CVEs as a result in their first test.
Iirc the bugs had to do with linux system details like fs toctou and other things you'd only find out about in production.
Ideally we'd have a better way of navigating platform idiosyncrasies or better system APIs, so that every project doesn't have to relearn them at runtime. But the rewrite isn't pure downside.
Not saying all of them were about FS TOCTOU bugs but once I got to these, that was my takeaway.
Obviously just using Rust cannot fix _all_ bugs, and I reject any criticisms towards Rust rewrites that tear down this particular straw man (its goal being to make it impossible to argue against). That's toxic and I get surprised every time people on HN try to argue in that childish way.
But if we can remove all C memory safety foot guns then that by itself is worth a lot already.
Losing decades-old knowledge on how the dysfunctional lower-level systems work would be regrettable and even near-fatal for any such projects. That I'd agree with. But it also raises the question on whether those lower-level systems don't need a very hard long look and -- eventually -- a replacement.
That's exactly the point though - replacing established projects is inherently risky no matter how many safety buzzwords the replacement can cram into its GitHub tags.
