[mu53]

Linux is not a side project. It has thousands of developers being paid by chip and hardware manufacturers to ensure that linux works on their products.

With the complexity of systems engineering, for a single driver, it takes months to build one from scratch. Plus, there is not enough expertise within the rust community to take on a project like the linux kernel to match the rate of development by many large corporations with hobbyists.

[docandrew]

It started as a side project.

They may not match the rate of upstream development, but doing their own thing is going to be a faster path to their goal of Rust in the kernel than trying to convince everyone else to do something that they don’t seem to want.

[grandempire]

The goal is to make rust relevant to Linux raising its own importance and legitimacy. The value is at least in part political. It can't achieve that goal in a branch.