Edits

Author: brson

_posts/2017-02-09-Rust-1.15.1.md

@@ -27,14 +27,15 @@ This release fixes two issues, a soundness bug in the new
 components of the Rust distribution were [not compiled with `-fPIC`][fpic].  The
 latter results in the text section of executables being writable in some
 configurations, including common Linux configurations, subverting an important
-attack mitigation, and causing longer startup times by causing the linker to do
+attack mitigation, and creating longer startup times by causing the linker to do
 more work. For mostly-Rust codebases, the practical impact of losing read-only
 text sections is relatively small (since Rust's type system is its first line of
 defense), but for Rust linked into other codebases the impact could be
-unexpectedly quite significant. The details of the bug are not that interesting
-though, and rest of this post focuses on the former soundness bug.
+unexpectedly quite significant. [PIC] issues are well understood and not
+Rust-specific, so the rest of this post focuses on the soundness bug.
 
 [fpic]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/39523
+[PIC]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Position-independent_code
 
 The problem with `as_mut_slice`, a three line function, was [discovered] just
 minutes after publishing Rust 1.15.0, and is a reminder that writing unsafe code
@@ -100,14 +101,11 @@ out a mutable slice.
 So we made that change, and we're releasing a fix. In Rust we take pride in not
 breaking APIs, but since this is a new, minor feature, and the present
 implementation is spectacularly unsound, we decided to go ahead and release the
-fix immediately, hopefully before too many codebases pick it up - that is, we
+fix immediately, hopefully before too many codebases pick it up — that is, we
 don't consider this a breaking change that requires a careful transition, but a
 necessary bug fix. For more about Rust's approach to ensuring stability see the
 ["Stability as a Deliverable"][stab] blog post, [RFC 1122], on language
-evolution, and [RFC 1105], on library evolution (curiously, RFC 1105 does not
-actually contain any language allowing for library breakage due to soundness,
-but the intent has always been clear that Rust reserves the right to break code to
-fix soundness holes).
+evolution, and [RFC 1105], on library evolution.
 
 [stab]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/10/30/Stability.html
 [RFC 1122]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/1122-language-semver.md