This week Google announced its intention to fund a project to make Linux more secure by writing parts of the operating system kernel in the Rust programming language. Such a change would represent a major technological and cultural shift for the open-source software project that has become the basis for vast areas of the Internet and operating systems, including Android.
Miguel Ojeda, who wrote the particle gas pedal software for the Large Hadron Collider and worked on security for programming languages, will reportedly be writing parts of the Linux kernel in Rust. Google will pay for the contract through the nonprofit organization Internet Security Research Group.
Adding modules written in Rust to the Linux kernel is expected to reduce the likelihood of vulnerabilities caused by insecure memory handling. At the time of its release in 1991, Linux was written in C, a language which is more vulnerable than modern programming languages. Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has said he is ready for a change if the value of using Rust for Linux is proven. So far, Ojeda has proposed 13 changes, which are necessary to run Rust modules on Linux.
Google thanked the Linux community programmers who are working on this project. “The community has already done and continues to do a great job of adding Rust support to the Linux kernel,” Google said in a statement.
As for the Rust language, it was developed by Mozilla, but is currently being developed by the nonprofit Rust Foundation. It pays special attention to secure memory handling. Microsoft’s security division stated back in 2019 that “Rust represents the best alternative to C and C++.”
