This is in direct contrast to this port, which requires significant re-architecting (or made "idiomatic", if you wish) in rust to achieve any of the benefits of the language. You can't re-architect one step at a time.
You just want it to be the same, to the maximum extent the language allows. E.g. 1000+ unsafe is the right move, for now.
Reaping the benefits of Rust is for _future_ development.
As such, this is a publicity stunt.
But the point is, in 2027, 2028... your new code doesn't have to suffer from these frankly 1970s issues
You could also gradually fix the internals — if you wanted to