Google throws $1M at Rust Foundation to build C++ bridges

Google on Monday donated $1 million to the Rust Foundation specifically to improve interoperability between the language and C++. C++, a popular general purpose programming language, has arguably fallen out of fashion due to concerns over safety. Memory safety errors are the source of the majority of vulnerabilities for Google …

[Dagg]

There is a shit load of legacy code that has kept people like me in work for a long time. It will not go away and while it just does what it does it will not be replaced.

Rust will need to integrate and interface with this existing code to provide the level of functionality that needs to remain. It is all well and good taking the moral high ground and saying that it should all be rewritten in Rust, but the issue is time, cost and in some cases no one actually knows how the old legacy code works...

[Arthur the cat]

There is a shit load of legacy code …

Rust will need to integrate and interface with this existing code

I known it's not what you meant, but I got a mental image of making Rust work with COBOL.

[Shudder]

[Dagg]

I still suffer the PTSD from when I HAD to get C++ to integrate with COBOL...

Oh the pain!

[Dan 55]

What happened to Carbon?

Just a case of the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, or will it be added to the Google graveyard about six months from now, or is it already in the graveyard?

[werdsmith]

Re: What happened to Carbon?

Carbon is in its embryonic stage. It’s GitHub says not ready for use.

[Dan 55]

Re: What happened to Carbon?

This Rust project and Carbon both aim to bridge with C/C++ code and not require you to throw everything out and rewrite. Even if Google did want to hedge their bets, the fact that nobody trusts them to not kill projects and they've just thrown money at Rust means that nobody's going to want to spend time learning Carbon, making it's death a self-fullfilling prophecy.

[Roland6]

Why is this news?

It is really telling that a $1m donation from a major player is news worthy.

To the likes of Microsoft and Google it’s a coin flipped into the beggars hat, and doesn’t buy a lot of development itmetime.

If Google et al are really serious about building bridges and improving Rust, how about adding a nought or two and promising to pay the same for the next 3+ years.

[fg_swe]

Blofeld Schwab

"You vill write code and own nossing"

I am absolutely sure Mr Brin and Mr Page spent at least 10 times as much for their trip to Davos to meetoffer their obedience to Blofeld.

[tracker1]

Re: Why is this news?

I agree.. this will find anywhere from 4-8 dev for a single year depending on location, taxes etc.

Will have to see what approach is taken, but C onterop is well defined... C++ is just, expansive to say the least. Of course this could just mean some magic that the rust compiler does,. Taking on the responsibility of also handling C++ compilation to LLVM, etc.

Either way, just guessing a few years of work on compilation followed by a couple more on LSP integration to make it more useful in practice. Lintinng integration on the C++ side will also likely be a necessity and take time.

[fg_swe]

How To Do It In A Lightweight Way

1.) Translate memory-safe language MSL to C++. MSL has the needed type system and semantics to enforce memory safety.

2.) Add an "include_cpp[[ ]]" statement to allow for the targeted insertion of C++ code/calls.

3.) Automatically generate a Makefile from MSL, which can then be extended to include the C++ libraries to be called.

Not theory, but practice: http://sappeur.ddnss.de/SAPPEUR.pdf

The transpiler ist just 10kloc of C++.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How To Do It In A Lightweight Way

Gawd, look what comes out of the woodwork every time Rust is mentioned.

[fg_swe]

"Gawd"

As you have no substantial arguments, I take this as an upvote. Thanks, AC !

[Anonymous Coward]

Rust Financials

The Rust foundation released their financials about a week ago.

TL;DR - It looks like a dumpster fire.

2023 Saw the Rust foundation grow again, with a result that they ran at an operating loss of $524k for this year, compared to making $887k profit the year before.

2023 included a drop in income, from $2.9m down to $2.6m

Expenses jumped from $2m for the previous year up to $3m for this year !

All Google is doing here is throwing the Rust foundation some google small change to so they can continue to "grow" whilst still being able to keep the power on. Putting $1 million into their account will only just cover the losses they are making, and will not provide enough extra capital to pay for even a handful of developer hours.

I seriously doubt that anyone at Google (or the Rust foundation) thinks this donation will amount to anything other than a bit of publicity.

Where is all the money going ?

Most of it got spent on "membership fees" of which a portion ends up going back into Google and Microsoft's pocket eventually. $1.5million on membership fees

The amount they spend on things like working on documentation, updating the spec etc is shockingly small. ($28k)

The Rust foundation managed to happily burn its way through over $3million .. whilst being able to hire only 3 new full-time developers.

They also received nearly $2 million of free infrastructure services, and yet still managed to blow an extra $400k on infrastructure costs out of pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rust Financials

lol, look who's never run a nonprofit. The annual big profit / big loss cycle is normal. It stems from accounting rules where you have to recognize the money in the year it was given to you, even if you don't intend to spend it until the following year. Someone donates you $1m on December 31st - massive profit. You spend it over the course of the next 12 months - massive loss. Nothing to see here.

The Rust Foundation was only set up in 2021, so no surprises that they've "only" hired 3 devs so far, no surprises that the expenses are increasing year on year, and no surprises that they haven't spent much on certain activities yet. That's how scaling up works. It's not instant.

It's hardly worth me continuing, but you've also totally misinterpreted "membership fees". The report says "Membership & Admin", which I'd bet my bottom dollar is the cost of professionals running a foundation, and in particular, the cost of the time it takes to cosset the egos of all the deep-pocketed Googles of the world and make sure they keep giving money TO Rust. And the fact that the Rust Foundation only has to pay cold hard cash for less than 20% of what is a quite stonkingly huge annual infrastructure bill... that's great work. These folk are putting the effort in.