Will Rust Soon Power the Linux Kernel? Insights from Linus Torvalds

At the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit, Linus Torvalds said Rust could appear in the Linux kernel as early as the next kernel cycle, possibly in Linux 5.20.

A "Stable" Development Process

Torvalds explained that the Linux project is an outlier in the open‑source world, with around 50 active maintainers and 1,000 developers per release, requiring a calm and steady development approach rather than the wild‑west patch‑and‑merge style of the past.

He encouraged experimentation, such as the Rust language initiative, and warned that once a language becomes part of the kernel, users will need education and dedicated maintainers.

Although no Rust‑for‑Linux pull requests have been merged yet, infrastructure and basic driver examples are stabilizing, and recent Rust kernel patches have progressed through review.

The Linux 5.20 merge window will open after the 5.19 stable release, allowing the community to see whether Rust PRs have landed.

Earlier efforts, such as Miguel Ojeda’s 2021 patch series, moved Rust support to rely on the stable Rust compiler, with plans to drop unstable features over time.

Academic and Industry Support

Since Rust’s rise, developers have shown increasing interest in using it for kernel code. In 2019, Alex Gaynor and Geoffrey Thomas presented a Rust kernel module prototype, emphasizing Rust’s ability to prevent memory‑safety bugs that cause many CVEs.

At the 2020 Linux Plumbers Conference, speakers discussed “Barriers to in‑tree Rust,” focusing on binding to existing C APIs, architecture support, and ABI compatibility. Linus noted that while the kernel won’t be rewritten in Rust, a gradual, stable adoption makes sense, especially for drivers and non‑core components.

Red Hat, ARM, Google, and Microsoft have also expressed support for the project.

Rust Foundation

The Rust Foundation, founded in February 2021 by AWS, Huawei, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla, provides funding and governance for the language, committing $1 million over two years to its development and promotion.

Reference: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Rust-For-Linux-5.20-Possible