Rusty Russell is an Australian

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

programmer and advocate, known for his work on the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

's networking subsystem and the

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) is a reference describing the conventions used for the layout of Unix-like systems. It has been made popular by its use in Linux distributions, but it is used by other Unix-like systems as well. It is main ...

Software development

Russell wrote the

packet filtering In computing, a firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on configurable security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted ne ...

systems

ipchains Linux IP Firewalling Chains, normally called ipchains, is free software to control the packet filter or firewall capabilities in the 2.2 series of Linux kernels. It superseded ipfirewall (managed by ipfwadm command), but was replaced by ipta ...

and netfilter/iptables in the

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

operating system kernel.

Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel. He also created the distributed version control system Git. He was honored, along with Shinya Yam ...

referred to him as one of his "top deputies" in 2003. In 2002, Russell announced the creation of the Trivial Patch Monkey, an email address for kernel hackers to submit trivial patches such as spelling errors, one-liners, documentation tweaks and other minor amendments to the code base. Adrian Bunk took over the role in 2005. In 2006 Russell started work as the major developer of the " lguest" virtualisation system in the

Kernel. In October 2009, he was officially given a SAMBA Team T-shirt welcoming him to the Samba Team. In 2014 he started pettycoin, a

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

project. Rusty Russell authored the majority part of Bitcoin's

Lightning Network The Lightning Network (LN) is a payment protocol built on the bitcoin blockchain. It is intended to enable fast transactions among participating nodes (independently run members of the network) and has been proposed as a solution to the bitcoin sca ...

protocol specification.

Australian Free Software community

Russell conceived and conducted th
Conference of Australian Linux Users
at

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

in 1999, the forerunner of the annual

linux.conf.au linux.conf.au (often abbreviated as lca or LCA) is Australasia's regional Linux and open source conference. It is a roaming conference, held in a different Australian or New Zealand city every year, coordinated by Linux Australia and organised ...

conference series. Russell is

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

advisor to

Linux Australia Linux Australia is the national, Australian Free and Open Source Software Community organisation. It was founded in 1997 and formally incorporated in New South Wales as a non-profit organisation in 1999. Linux Australia aims to represent Australia ...

and is active in advocating against and critiquing intellectual property elements of the

Free Trade Agreement A free trade agreement (FTA) or treaty is an agreement according to international law to form a free-trade area between the cooperating state (polity), states. There are two types of trade agreements: Bilateralism, bilateral and Multilateralism, m ...

between Australia and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. He was also a member of the

committee in 2004. Russell was the recipient of the inaugural (and

eponym An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

ous)

Rusty Wrench Linux Australia is the national, Australian Free and Open Source Software Community organisation. It was founded in 1997 and formally incorporated in New South Wales as a non-profit organisation in 1999. Linux Australia aims to represent Australia ...

award for service to the free software community at

2005.

Bibliography

* *

References

"Popping Kernels", Interview in Linux Magazine (UK), 2001Trivial Patch Monkey explained in Linux Journal, 2006

External links

Rusty's Linux Kernel PageRusty Russell's blog

Pettycoin
project
Twitter
profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Rusty Living people Australian computer programmers Linux kernel programmers Australian male bloggers 1973 births