From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 33FE53ED5D9 for ; Mon, 10 Aug 2026 15:08:45 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=18.9.28.11 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1786374527; cv=none; b=IBjFSq5QAjqzEAR5cDb3Q7BhXO0z+epkOgKCGGxZY1SZKfBxAlOMTS7L6dtcrtNXp/wmXoFYuEuKD4elzaPDuL4g/i071CqppqhI1irARY/m9/9xQgziH+RJjXS0QYybT6EF6jRxnVW/HPvj0ERpoplZ5HPllx4P+ybfyNciIuY= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1786374527; c=relaxed/simple; bh=1ubW86/gb2A6W/48U4RkfJFuOaeqDVNskldH0HbHaps=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=QRqBJN/w2lL+Po6BwDCSQaa9GOrXAiHfXhLqJS3ngfrFvwpZQAKvnfi+ej3uUU+YyPROzKVDCxyg6vPwh4eaImSC79fy3Wv5NH6HAGxIp/hds5rypLg/0mNUwApGjjgs5ioYKLv4G7kuB/o85Ctf+LXLs0xR/22wX0qk/zCOoy4= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=mit.edu; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=mit.edu; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=mit.edu header.i=@mit.edu header.b=GIi01LfF; arc=none smtp.client-ip=18.9.28.11 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=mit.edu Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=mit.edu Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=mit.edu header.i=@mit.edu header.b="GIi01LfF" Received: from macsyma.thunk.org (pool-173-48-113-153.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.113.153]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 67AF8Y15024609 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:08:36 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1786374517; bh=dngTPHsYZeEXkvoS2esdjOLLGeb6WaSxaq/8WpBfMyk=; h=Date:From:Subject:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=GIi01LfFKXTyAPe4txVPIG3/Nx4m61kn6RIndKlLpYpnYkodTHQmJzCB6vldbzL6/ XPmvRCQkJJU3gcoqHaetyKxoEGEMVIoHyNLdFptFgt+xPoWk++ND6OyVpsY9UnNcuM 5WtHQ6GYO5yKjvP4PPrLs6Z6/Jp6e6TZR5RzYzEZbXFUstdnmCoIl0YEd4iGIZdvFf WjIW0+vEPjEGdzBdBO4ZmCBTP22VZIKowbKxBYX+fsfwO/2QJrJDmkg9DIPW71BbDf MlCMmBD8PqZnacYiJwRqzduWnLSt75NSgYl31/JSdj95HCOZZeTRMcMnFD8ue/s2zE Wx0eKK2y2xIzQ== Received: by macsyma.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 82DB9E61C14; Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:07:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:07:34 -0400 From: "Theodore Tso" To: Geert Uytterhoeven Cc: Dave Airlie , "Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" , Linus Torvalds , Steven Rostedt , James Bottomley , ksummit@lists.linux.dev Subject: Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Time to call it quits for the maintainer summit? Message-ID: References: <8ae41b73983eee6ba716a61b8701df6522a02baa.camel@HansenPartnership.com> <20260806194153.6443a3ba@gandalf.local.home> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 09:42:12AM -0500, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > On Sat, 8 Aug 2026 at 01:20, Theodore Tso wrote: > > Today, the Maintainer Summit is basically a half-day event, with > > around 30 people (plus any sponsored attendees), and is only focused > > on process questions, with the technical discussions taking place at > > Forgive my ignorance, how do the sponsored attendees fit into this > picture? Sponsored attendees are part of the "pay to play" aspect of how we try to get sponsorship dollars. There can be up to 5 sponsored attendees, but I don't think we've ever had more than 2 sponsored attendees; sometimes a sponsor won't even send an attendee even if their sponsorship level would entitle them to do so. In practice, it's rare that a sponsored attendee actually speaks up at the Maintainers Summit, and for last 3 years, we haven't had any sponsors, so more recently Linux Foundation, not the sponsors have been paying the cost. The "Pay to Play" model for invite-only workshops has worked much better for LSF/MM, because companies are generally much more willing to pay $$$ to get in front of the upstream developers to get them to consider some technical proposal. When we had technical discussions happening at the Kernel Summit, that was definitely the dynamic. But most companies are much less interested in trying to inject proposals into process discussions. Especially in recent years, allocating dollars to pay for more AI data centers seem to be more important than many things, not just conference sponsorships. :-) Cheers, - Ted