Linus Torvalds merged the char/misc changes for Linux 7.4 on Saturday, and Phoronix says the headline is what got removed: Google’s C-written Binder driver is gone.
Why it matters
- Binder is Android’s inter-process communication driver. The C version grew complex and was “painful to maintain.”
- The Rust Binder driver, one of the earliest prominent Rust kernel drivers, has passed feature parity and outperforms the C driver in some tests.
- Greg Kroah-Hartman: “the rust version is stable and will be used going forward in a few billion devices. Great job by those developers.”
My take
Last week it was systemd merging Rust support. Now a core Android driver is Rust only. That’s not an experiment anymore, that’s the direction.
Have a blessed day! And Happy Hacking!
