Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINER TOPIC] Succession Planning: Is It time to Throw Linus Under a Bus?

[Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>]

On 9/6/18 3:28 PM, John W. Linville wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 06, 2018 at 03:20:08PM -0600, Jens Axboe wrote:
>> On 9/6/18 3:13 PM, James Bottomley wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2018-09-06 at 13:59 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 1:51 PM James Bottomley
>>>> <James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It's happened occasionally, but it's not very traditional.  Usually
>>>>> when people do a palace coup replacement, the tumbrels are waiting
>>>>> outside to cart the old dictator off to their sticky end.
>>>>
>>>> This has taken a dark turn.
>>>
>>> You were the one who mentioned dictators ... I was perfectly happy with
>>> the bus.
>>>
>>>> I do want to point out that I brought the question up last year on
>>>> the spot. I didn't get any reaction then. I was thinking me not being
>>>> around would have been more conducive to discussion. But whatever.
>>>
>>> OK, so we could still have a plebiscite in Vancouver; we have the room
>>> and the time still reserved.  It could propose a succession plan and
>>> just present it to you.  I admit there's precedent; it's how we did the
>>> next TAB chair for instance.
>>>
>>> However, I really think for an orderly succession plan, you need to be
>>> part of it rather than having a palace coup which could end up being
>>> really messy and divisive.  I suspect people treated your proposal last
>>> year as more of a joke last year because they didn't think you were
>>> serious.  If you're really serious about doing this, let's try to come
>>> up with the succession process in Edinburgh in October and see if we
>>> can run a Maintainer Summit with the new Leadership in Vancouver in
>>> November.
>>
>> This seems rather hasty to me, I think it would be prudent to establish
>> a timeline (on both sides?). Unless you are really proposing a coup?
> 
> FWIW, it took me months to coordinate an orderly withdraw just
> from the wireless maintainership. If this is a serious discussion,
> then I don't think it's too early to start planning for the coming
> changes. Just the thought of finding enough fools to backfill Linus
> makes me shudder...

I agree it'll take a long time to do this properly, the hastiness
remark was mostly in relation to the statement talking about a
new leadership being in place the month after.

-- 
Jens Axboe