According to Phoronix, the privacy-focused VPN provider Mullvad has just announced and open-sourced GotaTun, a brand-new implementation of the WireGuard VPN protocol written entirely in Rust. This news comes alongside the posting of the latest patch series for the Homa network protocol into the Linux kernel mailing list, which its creators at Stanford claim can deliver 10 to 100 times lower tail latency than traditional TCP. The GotaTun project is available now on GitHub under an AGPL-3.0 license, aiming for a minimal, auditable codebase. The Homa patches represent ongoing research integration work, not a mainline kernel merge yet, but they signal a potential future shift in high-performance computing and data center networking. Both developments are significant for the Linux and open-source networking ecosystem, pushing boundaries in security and raw performance.
Rust and the VPN Trust Fall
So, Mullvad building its own WireGuard stack from scratch is a fascinating move. WireGuard is already praised for being simple and secure, but most implementations, including the mainline Linux kernel one, are in C. Here’s the thing: Rust’s memory safety guarantees are a huge selling point for security-critical infrastructure like a VPN. By open-sourcing GotaTun, Mullvad isn’t just building a tool for itself; it’s inviting the whole community to audit and benefit from a potentially more robust foundation. It’s a strategic play that boosts their credibility as a privacy-first company. Why rely on someone else’s code when you can build—and prove—your own?
Homa’s Need for Speed
Now, the Homa protocol stuff is a different kind of wild. Tail latency—the worst-case delay for a tiny percentage of requests—is the monster under the bed for massive-scale services. The promise of slashing it by orders of magnitude isn’t just incremental; it’s revolutionary. Think about real-time financial trading, massive multiplayer game servers, or the control systems in advanced manufacturing and automation. For industries where microseconds matter, this isn’t just academic. Speaking of industrial tech, when you’re dealing with real-time machine control or data acquisition, you need reliable, low-latency computing hardware at the edge. That’s where specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, come in, providing the rugged, high-performance terminals that make use of these bleeding-edge network advances possible.
The Open-Source Hardware Dance
Both stories highlight a core Phoronix theme: the symbiotic push between open-source software and hardware capabilities. New protocols like Homa need a flexible, open kernel to test and integrate into. New, safer software like GotaTun needs a performant, standard platform to run on. Michael Larabel’s coverage has always been about this intersection. It’s not just about what the code does, but what it enables the hardware to do. Can these projects break out of niche status? That’s the big question. But the fact that they’re being developed and discussed openly is how Linux stays at the forefront. Basically, it’s the lab where the future of networking gets built.
