Rust for Linux lead developer Miguel Ojeda posted the patch a short time ago to “conclude the Rust experiment”. The “experiment” of Rust programming language code in the Linux kernel is over as it’s now accepted to be a success and “Rust is here to stay” in the kernel.
Following discussions at the Linux Plumbers Conference this week in Japan, Miguel Ojeda is now comfortable in declaring Rust for the Linux kernel a success in being able to drop the “experiment” flag on the effort. Ojeda wrote this evening on the kernel mailing list:
“The Rust support was merged in v6.1 into mainline in order to help determine whether Rust as a language was suitable for the kernel, i.e. worth the tradeoffs, technically, procedurally and socially.
At the 2025 Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit, the experiment has just been deemed concluded.
Thus remove the section — it was not fully true already anyway, since there are already uses of Rust in production out there, some well-known Linux distributions enable it and it is already in millions of devices via Android.
Obviously, this does not mean that everything works for every kernel configuration, architecture, toolchain etc., or that there won’t be new issues. There is still a ton of work to do in all areas, from the kernel to upstream Rust, GCC and other projects. And, in fact, certain combinations (such as the mixed GCC+LLVM builds and the upcoming GCC support) are still quite experimental but getting there.
But the experiment is done, i.e. Rust is here to stay.
I hope this signals commitment from the kernel to companies and other entities to invest more into it, e.g. into giving time to their kernel developers to train themselves in Rust.
Thanks to the many kernel maintainers that gave the project their support and patience throughout these years, and to the many other
developers, whether in the kernel or in other projects, that have made this possible. I had a long list of 173 names in the credits of the original pull that merged the support into the kernel, and now such a list would be way longer, so I will not even try to compose one, but again, thanks a lot, everybody.”
Marking Rust in the kernel as no longer an experiment comes down to removing “The Rust experiment” section of the kernel’s documentation.
The Rust code within the Linux kernel isn’t yet built by default but likely a matter of time before it de facto becomes that way when the open-source NVIDIA (Nova) driver is useful to end-users and other Rust-written modern drivers becoming prevalent.
