May 12, 2024 – The Rust Foundation recently announced the receipt of a generous donation of $1 million from Microsoft, which had been made in December 2023. This significant contribution, equivalent to approximately 7.23 million Chinese yuan, will be invested in various critical projects to support the Rust programming language and community.
According to the Foundation, the funds will be used to hire an additional Rust Foundation infrastructure engineer, finance the “Rust Foundation Fellowship” program, develop new projects, and ease the workload of existing Rust project maintainers.
Furthermore, the Rust Foundation’s board approved a motion in January 2024 to allocate 350,000(roughly2.531millionyuan)fromthisdonationtohireanewinfrastructureengineer.Anadditional650,000 (about 4.699 million yuan) has been earmarked for direct funding of “engineers’ chosen priorities” over the next two years.
In the first quarter of 2024, the Rust Foundation, along with the Rust Foundation Project Lead and the Rust Project Leadership Committee, identified the most pressing funding needs within the current Rust projects. The Leadership Committee is considering using a significant portion of the first $325,000 (equivalent to approximately 2.35 million yuan) allocated to Rust projects to improve crucial processes. This includes developing new collaboration mechanisms aimed at enhancing the efficiency of maintainers’ workflows.
It’s worth noting that Google has also recently donated $1 million to the Rust Foundation, specifically to enhance C++ and Rust interoperability, demonstrating the industry’s commitment to supporting and advancing the Rust programming language.
