Ryan Levick Principal Rust Developer Advocate at Microsoft The Rust project is a globally distributed collection of hundreds of individuals who all have different reasons for dedicating various amounts of time and energy in service of making Rust a great programming language. Despite (or maybe because of) this unique constellation of motivation, perspectives, and backgrounds, complex technical and organizational decisions get made every single day. But how is all of this coordinated? In this talk, we’ll explore the inner workings of Rust project governance. We’ll dive into the unique features and challenges associated with Rust’s distributed and consensus oriented decision-making process, and we’ll try to form an understanding of what makes one of the largest and most complex open-source projects tick. By the end, you’ll have a better understanding of what makes open source at scale so challenging, and you’ll be better prepared to engage meaningfully in discussions about how the Rust project can and should be run in the future.