The Rust programming language is now supported by the Rust Foundation, an independent organization that will look after the future of the language as more developers start using it.
Rust, created at Mozilla as a safer alternative to C and C ++, quickly became one of the most favored languages for system development, although it is not widely used for application development.
Google is supporting Rust for a key component of the Apache HTTP web server project, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is investing in the Rust community and is a key sponsor, while Microsoft is planning to replace some Windows components written in C / C ++ and to develop components for the Azure cloud.
Rust only reached version 1.0 in 2015, so it is a relatively young language compared to Python, Java and JavaScript.
The language allowed Mozilla engineers to remove memory-related security bugs in Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine that were written in C ++. The developers replaced about 160,000 lines of C ++ code in Firefox with 85,000 lines of Rust. The language was critical to the Mozilla Servo browser engine.
The establishment of the Rust Foundation is an important milestone for the language. As Niko Matsakis, a former Mozilla engineer, a principal contributor to Rust and now an AWS engineer, recently pointed out, there is a mistaken perception that Rust is owned by Mozilla.
The foundation creates a vehicle to accept funding from organizations other than Mozilla, such as AWS and Microsoft Azure.
“Unfortunately, there is sometimes a persistent perception that Mozilla” owns “Rust, which can discourage companies from investing, or create the perception that there is no need to support Rust, since Mozilla is paying the bill. establishing a foundation will make official what has been true in practice for a long time: that Rust is an independent project, “wrote Matsakis recently.
“We also sometimes hear from companies, large and small, that would like to financially support Rust, but at the moment there is no clear way to do that. Creating a foundation creates a place where that support can be directed.”
Mozilla will continue to support Rust, but will not sponsor the project alone. The Rust Foundation will hold its first board meeting on February 9.
The board of directors includes representatives from AWS, Huawei, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla.
Last year, Microsoft paid Rust’s continuous integration (CI) bills, while AWS supported its storage costs through S3 for several years.
Until now, Rust has not operated as a separate legal entity, which was previously Mozilla’s responsibility. These problems affected the project in a number of ways, including Rust’s trademarks and Rust’s package management system, crates.io. Mozilla was also responsible for handling copyright removal requests under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The Rust team couldn’t do simple things, like signing a contract and / or establishing a bank account to manage funds from sponsors like Microsoft and AWS.
“A common example that emerges is the need to have an entity that can legally sign contracts” for the Rust project. “For example, we recently wanted to sign up for Github’s Token Scanning program, but we were unable to find out who should sign the contract” notes Matsakis.
As part of the new agreement, Mozilla transferred all trademarks and infrastructure assets to the Rust Foundation, including the registration of crates.io packages.
“This marks a major step in the growth of Rust on multiple axes; not least, a formal financial commitment from a group of leading companies in the global industry, heralding the arrival of Rust as a production-ready business technology,” said Ashley Williams , interim executive director of the Rust Foundation.
“I am personally moved and motivated by the sense of responsibility that comes from this commitment. The eager and enthusiastic participation of our founding sponsors is not only a promise to maintain and sustain Rust as it is today, but an endorsement of Rust’s values and a dedication to share the responsibility to cultivate the future that Rust aspires to. “