Distributing Rust in RPMs for fun (relatively speaking) and profit

This talk gives an overview of how Rust libraries ("crates") and applications are packaged as RPMs for Fedora Linux, and how this distribution mechanism addresses multiple shortcomings of the limited functionality of the distribution mechanism built-in to cargo, the Rust package manager:

• Application updates that are integrated with the system package manager.
• Automatic distribution of security updates independent of application releases.
• System integration features like shell completions, manual pages, launchers, etc.
• Test coverage for CPU architectures that are usually not available in CI systems.

Packaging Rust crates as individual RPM packages also simplifies package maintainer responsibilities, despite increased up-front work:

• Security issues in library code are patched once instead of once per affected package.
• Audits can happen once per crate / version instead of once per vendored copy.
• Test coverage for library crates (not possible when using vendored dependencies).