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> Running untrusted unbounded code in the kernel is not smart.

Well currently we run code (e.g. drivers) as trusted full-permission code. Surely, web-assembly would be better than this from a security perspective.

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Generally kernel code is also written to specific constraints. Out-of-tree drivers are usually bad at conforming and hypothetical out-of-tree webassembly drivers would be bad for similar reasons. Memory safety isn’t enough, using kernel interfaces safely requires conformance that webassembly can’t statically guarantee like BPF can

Basic examples: code that takes a lock and never releases it, code that loops forever, code that leaks kernel resources.

What use case do you envision?

Out-of-tree drivers, support for closed-source drivers in Linux (assuming kernel API for wasm drivers is stable).

While I see how out-of-tree drivers using a stable API might be a desirable goal, I don't understand what WASM adds to the table. Maybe some degree of cross-arch portability, but that's already afforded by C and the kernel.

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