For various libs, you provide a way to build without it. If it's not auto-detected, or explicitly disabled via the configure command line, then don't try to use it. Then whatever depends on it just doesn't work. If for some insane reason git integrates XML and uses libxml for some feature, let it build without the feature for someone who doesn't want to provide libxml.

> At the end of the day, there's a finite amount of work people spend on a given project

Integrating Rust shows you have too much time on your hands; the people who are affected by that, not necessarily so.

> Integrating Rust shows you have too much time on your hands; the people who are affected by that, not necessarily so.

As cited elsewhere in the this thread, the person making this proposal on the mailing list has been involved in significant contributions to git in the past, so I'd be inclined to trust their judgment about whether it's a worthwhile use of their time in the absence of evidence to the contrary. If you have something that would indicate this proposal was made in bad faith, I'd certainly be interested to see it, but otherwise, I don't see how you can make this claim other than as your own subjective opinion. That's fine, but I can't say I'm shocked that the people actually making the decisions on how to maintain git don't find it convincing.