There’s a lot of noise in the developer community given the recent developments over US sanctions. The way it’s going I feel that the divide has already been created and we are there only to choose sides. The far east is keen on hard forking the Linux kernel. Though Russian owned Astra Linux is in use in Tianwan Nuclear Plant in China, I’m not sure about the current state of the other Russian owned Linux variant ROSA and how people will put their trust in this whole new attempt of forking Linux kernel especially in the western hemisphere.

There’s a bright side to it too. The way US sanctions are designed, it prohibits most of its own people from engaging with the far east. On the other hand, people from the far east can be more free to take it to the next level. Hard forking is an option they are going with. But, I feel that the restrictions will hinge on which language to go for while forking it. Since the other side of the US sanctions are more open in nature, this could open doors for creating a more secure operating system kernel. With that I intend to bring back the discussion over Rust versus C. Rust is touted to be a safer and more popular programming language and therefore I believe that it is a viable solution for hard-forking Linux kernel and rewriting it from scratch.

Moreover, Rust is a statically typed language and therefore easier to debug at the compile time. There’s a minimum chance that a malicious code or backdoor could end up in it. Plus, a good set of frameworks and libraries makes it an easy winner. The only challenge would be during backporting some of the implementations in Rust given the fact that the far east would be more willing to take what’s out there already.

If that happens in the near future, I see the rise in the soft power for the far east too. There’s already a lot going on in the BRICS summit. The sudden urge to move away from US Dollar trade and pose an alternative for the SWIFT messaging system suddenly seems to be accelerating at another pace thanks to the US sanctions. And this latest move would only push the envelope further. The soft power is something that is lacking for BRICS member countries at the moment and the moment they capitalize on it, the entire ecosystem will fall in place.

The adoption of Rust would also accelerate more refined embedded systems and that holds the key to major investments in the future. The push to establish strong trade relations among BRICS members could govern a lot of these changes.The way the US is restricting themselves by barring one side of the world could pave a new way for the BRICS block to cease it as an opportunity and spin it around in their favor. But, given their slow pace in understanding these dynamics and rift among BRICS members themselves, I still see some light for the west. Maybe, the west knows it too.