Rust Foundation with Bec Rumbul, Lori Lorusso, and David Wood

Most Rust developers use the language, compiler, package registry, and tooling every day without thinking too much about the organization that helps keep parts of that ecosystem funded and sustainable.

This episode is a re-introduction to the Rust Foundation: what it does, what it does not do, how it relates to the Rust Project, and why that distinction matters for teams using Rust professionally.

My guests are Rebecca Rumbul, Executive Director and CEO of the Rust Foundation, Lori Lorusso, Director of Outreach at the Rust Foundation, and David Wood, Principal Software Engineer at Arm, Compiler Team Co-Lead in the Rust Project, and a Rust Foundation board member. Together we talk about the practical side of ecosystem stewardship: infrastructure, security, interop, maintainer support, governance, corporate membership, open-source funding, and the pressure new technologies like AI put on language ecosystems.

About the Rust Foundation

The Rust Foundation is an independent non-profit organization supporting the success, sustainability, and positive impact of the Rust programming language. Its work includes funding and supporting ecosystem infrastructure, security and interoperability initiatives, maintainer support, project administration, community programs, events, and collaboration with member companies and donors.

The Foundation is separate from the Rust Project. The Rust Project governs the language, compiler, standard library, and technical direction through its own teams and decision-making processes. The Foundation provides organizational, financial, legal, and operational support around that work, without owning Rust’s technical roadmap.

About the Guests

Rebecca Rumbul is the Executive Director and CEO of the Rust Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s work on organizational strategy, member engagement, sustainability, and support for the broader Rust ecosystem.

Lori Lorusso is Director of Outreach at the Rust Foundation. Her work connects the Foundation with the Rust community, member organizations, trainers, contributors, and companies adopting Rust in production.

David Wood is a Principal Software Engineer at Arm, CE-SW Rust Team Lead, Compiler Team Co-Lead in the Rust Programming Language Project, and a board member of the Rust Foundation. In this episode, David adds the perspective of someone involved in Rust’s technical work as well as Foundation governance.

Links From The Episode

• Mozilla - The first home of the Rust language
• Python Steering Council - The governing body of the Python Project
• How to Write a C++ Language Extension Proposal - Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of C++, on why C++ needed a standards committee
• SCRC - The Safety-Critical Rust Consortium
• FLS - The Ferrocene Language Specification, a specification of the Rust language that is required for certain steps in the certification of Rust for safety-critical applications
• Foundation Membership Tiers - The different quantifiable benefits from Diamond to Silver and Associate Memberships
• Rust Commercial Network - A group of organisations that use Rust in production working together with the Rust Project
• Rust-C++ Interoperability Initiative - An initiative of the Rust Foundation to improve interoperability between Rust and C++
• Rust Embedded Working Group - An official working group of the Rust language to improve usability of the language in hardware-constrained environments
• An AI Security Engineer in Residence for the Rust Ecosystem - Describing the position of the security engineer made possible by funding from Alpha-Omega
• Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund - The Foundation’s fund to support Rust maintainers
• Rust Foundation Trusted Training - The Foundation’s accreditation program for Rust training providers

Official Links

• Rust Foundation Website
• Rust Foundation Media Room
• Rust Foundation on GitHub
• Rust Foundation on LinkedIn
• David Wood’s website