It actually is a language issue.

Although rust can dynamically link with C/C++ libraries, it cannot dynamically link with other Rust libraries. Instead, they are statically compiled into the binary itself.

But the GPL interacts differently with static linking than with dynamic. If you make a static binary with a GPL library or GPL code, your program must be GPL. If you dynamically link a GPL library, you’re program doesn’t have to be GPL. It’s partially because of this, that the vast majority of Rust programs and libraries are permissively licensed — to make a GPL licensed rust library would mean it would see much less use than a GPL licensed C library, because corporations wouldn’t be able to extend proprietary code off of it — not that I care about that, but the library makers often do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Libraries — it’s complicated.

EDIT: Nvm I’m wrong. Rust does allow dynamic linking

Hmmmm. But it seems that people really like to compile static rust binaries, however, due to their portability across Linux distros.

EDIT2: Upon further research it seems that Rust’s dynamic linking implementation lacks a “stable ABI” as compared to other languages such as Swift or C. So I guess we are back to “it is a language issue”. Well thankfully this seems easier to fix than “Yeah Rust doesn’t support dynamic linking at all.”

Edit3: Nvm, I’m very, very wrong. The GPL does require programs using GPL libraries, even dynamically linked, be GPL. It’s the LGPL that doesn’t.

Openstack cluster!