Linus Torvalds: Speaks on RUST and the Future of Linux Programming

let's get linis Tal's thoughts on introducing rust to the Linux colel and programming with it in general here's a recent conversation that he had with Dirk who is the head of the open source program office at Verizon let's get into what lenus thinks about Rus and the colonel besides lenus not liking my joke I want to apologize to the simultaneous translators because I have no idea how you would translate this into Japanese um Good Luck so one of the things we've talked a lot about over the last few kernel releases is the ruction of rust into the kernel and I think it has been relatively steady and quiet what's your perception well the rust still is at the point where we don't we have the initial infrastructure got merged last year Linux Colonel it's been growing but we don't have any part of the kernel that really depends on Rust yet to me rust was one of those things that a made technical sense but to me personally even more important was that we need to not stagnate as as a colonel and as developers and um so I am always Deed by trying something new and not getting too comfortable doing the same thing I mean I've been working on on the colonel now for 32 years uh yeah 32 years and that's a long it's a very long time time to work on one single thing but it's still interesting because it's not the same single thing I mean Linux 32 years ago was very different from what Linux is today obviously and and I actually often look for things where where we can do new things and we can do things differently because it's so easy to get stuck in a rut and say this is working just fine and and rust has not really shown itself as the next great big thing but I think during next year we'll actually be starting to integrate drivers and some even major subsystems that are starting to actively use it so it's one of those things it's going to take years before it's a big part of the caral but it's uh it's certainly shaping up to be one of those which is refreshing to hear from lennus I think lennus is approaching this very levelheaded because he realizes that anyone who stays behind in age and Technologies is going to stay behind this is crucial to the development of Linux and all open source programs I like to hear this so you're writing rust code yourself you're revie rust code I have been reading rust that would Blas so that I can make some kind of judgment calls on on when something is too horrendous to be included in the colel but I have to admit No I um I mean the colonel we rely on literally thousands of people every single release we we have a thousand people involved and they're not the same thousand people quite often we have people in fact fact for the longest time we've had the statistics be roughly that every release about half the people involved send just one patch and a lot of them never show up again they may have something small they wanted to fix that they cared about and they were not really Colonel people they found it for some other reason and they sent their small patch to the colel and they were never interested in doing anything more but then the other half keeps coming back and and when it comes to rust I'm not going to be the one who manages the rust code because that's not my expertise as is true of so many other parts of the kernel uh I'm honestly I'm less of a programmer these days than I am I call myself a technical lead because I'm not I'm not a manager I don't manage people I manage code so I call myself a technical lead I'm not I'm not my day-to-day work is not programming it is um merging other people codes and rust will be one of those things yeah so so Jim in his keynote pointed out that open source developers sometimes are opinionated sometimes they express their op so over the last two years rust has really started to become more and more of a language that can be used in lower level programming because of one of its most beneficial components which is memory safe and writing memory safe code really helps for several crucial reasons because you can write more reliable secure and efficient software with it so Linus is actually indicating a gradual but significant incorporation of rust into the Linux kernels ecosystem which is quite fascinating as you can tell he mentions that it's not by any means ready to be actually accepted by the kernel but it does have the initial infrastructure to get it merged into the kernel and he seems to be optimistic about how it's going to be implemented into the kernel noting that he sees subcommunities that are contributing to the colonel starting to use rust in order to actually write code in many of the subsystems it'll be an interesting year for Linux as Russ gets more and more adoption but whether or not it's here to stay and be accepted is a question for how it fares over the next couple years this is something important that lennus realizes we're not going to have the same people around developing the kernel forever we have to adapt with new technologies and one of those new technologies is rust to make it more efficient and easier to write code especially for newer developers who aren't necessarily used to writing C code at such a low level Russ can help to an extent bridge that Gap I was not aware of one single patch from half of the people so if there's a thousand that means 500 people are submitting one patch to help improve the kernel whereas the rest are contributing more than one and there's probably an even bigger breakdown like only 10% of the overall contributors contribute 99% of the code which is kind of unique to the open source Community not many places where you get to contribute your own thoughts and ideas other than open source because if you see something you don't like or that is in your vision incorrect or wrong you can actually make a change you can submit and advocate for your own code and that's been the beauty of Linux over the years over the last 30 years is that you yourself can make a change into the colel if you don't like something so keep that in mind next time you see something that just bothers you so overall it seems like Linux is actually welcoming rust and in general new technologies to the Linux Kel and the open source Community which is fantastic this is what you would want to see from a good leader and he has been leading the development of Linux for the last 30 years so it's refreshing to see somebody who seemingly has their ducks in a a row and I wish the community the best for the next 30 years as AI becomes more involved in everyone's experience of programming if you want to check out Linus's direct thoughts on AI and what it's going to do for open source programming check out my video in the description below what do you think about the adoption of Rus and Linux is it going to happen do you think it should happen either way I'd love to hear it in the comment section below catch me in a great community on Discord and I'll catch you in another video thanks for watching

Channel: SavvyNik

Views: 32,955

Keywords: Linus Torvalds, Programming, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Open Source, Linux, SavvyNik, Linux Open Source, Creator of Linux, linux kernel, llm, developers, dev, open source, open source programming, programmer fatigue, burn out, developer burn out, dev burn out, programmer burn out, burnt out, linux, linux programming, linux open source, linux operating system, rust programming, rust in kernel, rust in linux, rust dev, rust, linux news, linus torvalds, linus, ubuntu, torvalds

Id: ZZJUhHlxaYs

Length: 7min 31sec (451 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2024