After 34 years, the Linux kernel community finally has a contingency plan to replace Linus Torvalds — formal plan drawn up now community is 'getting grey and old'
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe...
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, has been its lead maintainer since its inception in 1991. That's a long way back now, and in the man's own words, the kernel community is "getting grey and old." Interestingly enough, though, it was only few days ago that a formal plan was drawn to replace Torvalds, should he wish to retire or something happens to him, or whoever else may be in charge.
The contingency plan now in place is fairly simple, and only triggered if there's not a graceful transition when the occasion arises. Should there be a need for it, the kernel community will first find an Organizer, who is the last Maintainer Summit organizer, or the current Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board Chair (TAB).
The Organizer has 72 hours to kick off discussions with the invitees of the most recent Maintainers Summit. Should 15 months have elapsed since the last Maintainers Summit, then it's up to the TAB to determine the invitees, who may bring other maintainers in as they see fit. This collective then presents its decision in two weeks' time and communicates to the community via mailing list.
If push came to shove, even without this official plan, it's likely that the kernel community would easily reach an agreement. After all, as Torvalds himself remarked in the past, there are not a lot of open-source projects that "have maintainers that have literally been around for over three decades".
Despite expressing some concern about the number of maintainers earlier in the decade, he's not currently concerned about the technical acumen of the talent pool, either, going as far as saying that "it's not instant, but there are new people who come in, and three years later they are a main developer."
This scenario should be familiar to any software project manager, as it illustrates the key concept of "bus factor," or the number of people that can get hit by a bus before your project is in trouble. Right now, that figure is a nice round zero for the Linux kernel, despite the community being good at self-management. For the time being, Linus Torvalds hasn't expressed any desire to stop being the Linux kernel head, but any increase in the bus factor is welcome, especially coming from nil.
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Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
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praz01 Reply
"recognize that others were better at writing operating system." I'm going to take this sentence purposely out of context to mention that Torvalds' notorious for rejecting pull requests (code changes), on some occasions lashing out in less than civil manner (non-pc)! The Linux Foundation code of conduct solely exists to keep Linus' in check.Deleted member 2824971 said:I've always felt and argued that Linus' primary quality is his ability to produce good social code via decision making and supporting a culture, rather than programming computer code.
One of his first such decisions was to recognize that others were better at writing operating system code and to offer his code to full replacement.
And he is now repeating the very same concept on a meta level, just what I'd have expected and I quite sincerely admire.
I don't praise easily: they say it spoils character... -
bit_user Reply
I've read several of his rants and they generally make sense to me. I'd rather someone be in charge who's not afraid to give the blunt, honest truth and doesn't waste lots of time and words talking around the real issue than someone who's a mere politician.praz01 said:"recognize that others were better at writing operating system." I'm going to take this sentence purposely out of context to mention that Torvalds' notorious for rejecting pull requests (code changes), on some occasions lashing out in less than civil manner (non-pc)! The Linux Foundation code of conduct solely exists to keep Linus' in check.
There's lots of conventional wisdom about projects that are "designed by committee" and it's widely held to be a bad way to go. IMO, if you get someone who's too much of a politician in charge, you end up with something similar.
For all the Linus-bashing, you can't argue with Linux' success. So far, we can only imagine how it would've fared under a different style of leadership. -
DS426 There's Linus bashers and then cult-like followers, with the rest of us somewhere in the middle (or rather not caring at all). Indeed many of us would have much bigger egos and try to benefit personally more from being in this position.Reply
As for this succession planning, I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. Failing to plan is planning to fail, and that could have very well happened. Linus would remain at the top of the pyramid as long as he wishes (and is alive), so there's no real downside to finding and determining successors. Linux deserves and needs the resiliency of an even more robust organization, even as great as it's community structure is.
Plenty of technical competence at upper leadership levels but long-term strategy and vision is still an afterthought (or finally catching up as the "gray old man" and others ponder these things), even as the Linux Foundation's aim was to provide those things. -
bit_user Reply
Yeah, I'd have expected it to be near the top of Linux Foundation's priorities, upon its founding.DS426 said:As for this succession planning, I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. -
randomizer Replypraz01 said:"recognize that others were better at writing operating system." I'm going to take this sentence purposely out of context to mention that Torvalds' notorious for rejecting pull requests (code changes), on some occasions lashing out in less than civil manner (non-pc)! The Linux Foundation code of conduct solely exists to keep Linus' in check.
Others were better, but not those others. :) -
praz01 Reply
Lol. He's gone out of his way to "waste lots of time and words," with some tirades extending to months, with personal attacks which are questionable while a simple no would have sufficed. That things about the developer "you are too stupid to find a t** to suck on" and "d** as a baby" was totally unnecessary. He wasted alot of time backtracking and apologising and not to mention the Foundation resources creating a code of conduct. There's no point sugarcoating this, he's a genius ***h*le. But I do agree with you that Linux wouldn't be what it is today without his stewardship.bit_user said:I've read several of his rants and they generally make sense to me. I'd rather someone be in charge who's not afraid to give the blunt, honest truth and doesn't waste lots of time and words talking around the real issue than someone who's a mere politician.
There's lots of conventional wisdom about projects that are "designed by committee" and it's widely held to be a bad way to go. IMO, if you get someone who's too much of a politician in charge, you end up with something similar.
For all the Linus-bashing, you can't argue with Linux' success. So far, we can only imagine how it would've fared under a different style of leadership. -
bit_user Reply
I haven't read the majority of his "tirades", but the ones I have read explain his position and that serves to head off the same or other persons trying the same thing again. Much of the time, a simple "no" wouldn't suffice - especially if it got to the point of triggering such a response. Maybe the event triggering it was small, but it could've been the latest in a series of similar events that caused him to feel a bigger response was warranted.praz01 said:Lol. He's gone out of his way to "waste lots of time and words," with some tirades extending to months, with personal attacks which are questionable while a simple no would have sufficed.
I've been in the situation of dealing with developers who are doing something counterproductive and getting their attention can sometimes be difficult. I understand the temptation to reach for attention-grabbing language, since there's only so much you can do when you're both remote and your messages are swimming in the amount of traffic that normally traverses the LKML. I'm not trying to justify everything he's ever said, but I'm just explaining why I tend to cut him a bit of slack.
No, he's not perfect, but there's a high bar to achieve what he's done and now you're raising it even higher? Seriously, do you have any idea how big a problem burnout is, among open source maintainers?