The topic of the Rust experiment was just discussed at the annual Maintainers Summit. The consensus among the assembled developers is that Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental — it is now a core part of the kernel and is here to stay. So the "experimental" tag will be coming off. Congratulations are in order for all of the Rust for Linux team.

(Stay tuned for details in our Maintainers Summit coverage.)

The Free Software Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2024 (even though 2025 is almost over) Free Software Awards. Andy Wingo won the award for the advancement of free software, Alx Sa is the outstanding new free-software contributor, and Govdirectory takes the award for projects of social benefit.