Linux after Linus?
Linux after Linus? The kernel community finally drafts a plan for replacing Torvalds
Linus plans to live forever. But just in case he doesn't, there's now a succession plan (though no actual successor).
So wild speculation time what happens the day that Linus isn't at the helm any more, for one reason or another. What or whom will replace Linus? Is there a list of requirements? Will AI replace Linus? Or some kind of very small shell script? Or will the $corporate overlords take over and within a short time frame everything turns to shit?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-community-project-continuity-plan-for-replacing-linus-torvalds/
Linux Kernel Gets Continuity Plan For Post-Linus Era
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The Linux kernel project has finally answered one of the biggest questions gripping the community: what happens if Linus Torvalds is no longer able to lead it?
The "Linux project continuity document," drafted by Dan Williams, was merged into its documentation last week, just ahead of the release of Linux 6.19-rc7. Notably, the document's path is Documentation/process/conclave.rst.
It notes that the kernel development project is "widely distributed, with over 100 maintainers each working to keep changes moving through their own repositories."
But "the final step... is a centralized one where changes are pulled into the mainline repository." And that is "normally done by Linus Torvalds," though "there are others who can do that work when the need arises."
It delicately adds: "Should the maintainers of that repository become unwilling or unable to do that work going forward (including facilitating a transition), the project will need to find one or more replacements without delay."
So what will happen? The process centers on "$ORGANIZER" who is "the last Maintainer Summit organizer or the current Linux Foundation (LF) Technical Advisory Board (TAB) Chair as a backup."
The document says: "Within 72 hours, $ORGANIZER will open a discussion with the invitees of the most recently concluded Maintainers Summit. A meeting of those invitees and the TAB, either online or in-person, will be set as soon as possible in a way that maximizes the number of people who can participate."
In the event of no summit happening in the previous 15 months, the TAB will choose the attendees. Invitees can bring in other maintainers as needed. The meeting will be chaired by $ORGANIZER and will "consider options for the ongoing management of the top-level kernel repository consistent with the expectation that it maximizes the long term health of the project and its community."
"Next steps" will then be communicated to the broader community through the ksummit@lists.linux.dev mailing list. The Linux Foundation, with guidance from the TAB, will "take the steps necessary to support and implement this plan."
The document follows discussion of succession and continuity at the 2025 Maintainers Summit. This included what would happen during a "smooth transition" if Torvalds decides it is time to move on, as well as the process "should something happen."
While Torvalds has a firm grip on Linux, as the continuity plan notes, he has himself mused on his own future and the fact the maintainer community, at least for the kernel, is getting grayer.
At the Open Source Summit in 2024, he noted: "Some people are probably still disappointed that I'm still here. I mean, it is absolutely true that kernel maintainers are aging."
He was asked by fellow pioneer Dirk Hohndel of Verizon what the community needs to do to ensure the next generation is ready, "so that in 10, 15, 20, 30 years your role can be handed off to someone else."
Torvalds replied: "We've always had a lot of people who are very competent and could step up." As for an aging community, he said new people still come in and become main developers within three years. "It's not impossible at all."
And Torvalds is not the only maintainer making plans as the open source community matures. Some projects have, of course, fallen by the wayside over the years. Some remain embedded in the ecosystem, even as their originators and maintainers get older.
One option is handing them over to a foundation. Others like curl originator Daniel Stenberg have remained fiercely independent – with discreet arrangements to pass on their GitHub details when the time comes.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, @08:09PM (12 children)
i'm surprised the evil fucks in Redmond still let him live.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, @08:32PM
Old saying: "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
Alive they can learn from him, steal ideas, maybe embrace and extinguish (on which they're making progress).
(Score: 5, Funny) by RamiK on Saturday January 31, @09:10PM (2 children)
Microsoft Personal Computing segment (Windows + Office + gaming...) revenues are at $14.3 billion and decreasing due to competition from Apple while Azure, which is mostly Linux, racked in $51.5 and is growing fast: https://news.microsoft.com/source/2026/01/28/microsoft-cloud-and-ai-strength-drives-second-quarter-results-3/ [microsoft.com]
If Amazon doesn't beat them to it, Microsoft would hire an army of bodyguards to protect their golden goose from coming under any harm.
compiling...
(Score: 5, Funny) by acid andy on Saturday January 31, @11:32PM (1 child)
That's a formidable performance! I mean, you could buy, like, two or three large pizzas with that money!
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday February 01, @09:22PM
And bake it in the server rack from the radiated heat. Win-win!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, @10:26PM (3 children)
They stopped being a software company a long time ago. They joined the "customer is the product" model where software is just a tool. The GPL fits that model fine, they don't care. Unfortunately for those of us who preferred the honest fee-for-product business model, it's gone and not likely to come back. Everything's in the cloud, AI is just making it worse. If they get their wish of fully locking down hardware so you can't build your own OS, they'll let Linux live so they can claim they're not doing what they've done. A few thousand dollars to get a key or whatever is something corporations working on the kernel can afford, but it's enough to discourage almost all hobby OSs that might eventually grow in to something interesting. DIY hardware is also (for now) mostly out of reach, although if you're willing to tolerate the much lower performance of something based on a PLA there's that; but once again too niche to make a real difference. Keep thinking free though--free as in working for corporations without getting paid.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bentonite on Sunday February 01, @06:39AM (2 children)
microsoft isn't going to let GNU/Linux boot on their computers in the future "for your security".
Restricted boot by default, on all windows 11 computers, refuses to boot the GNU GRUB OS (as part of a free GNU/Linux-libre OS).
Only a handful of proprietary GNU/Linux distros will boot from a flash drive for now, as those have been granted signing keys for GRUB and Linux.
In the future, the ability to disable restricted boot will be completely removed (already done for ARM tablets, although later a shim allowing booting most things happened to be released) and eventually signing keys will no longer be granted for anything non-windows "for your security".
The anti-trust regulators might come sniffing around, but microsoft will just point at; "WSL2" (carefully surveilled GNU/Linux VMs, but at least those came with Linux unlike "WSL1") and say; `look, you can run "Linux" just fine.`.
That's thinking open, as that's what "open source" is about.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Sunday February 01, @03:55PM (1 child)
Good thing Moore's Law is just about dead and old motherboards become cheap. The current generation of hardware comes very close to doing everything I could ever want from a PC, I think.
If motherboard manufacturers stop providing the option to disable secure boot, won't someone make a custom firmware to do it?
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bentonite on Monday February 02, @03:10AM
Such appears to be set to continue for at least a few more years, but the number of transistors alone doesn't mean much.
It's somewhat hard to find a decent old motherboard cheap (although you can easily find a random old motherboard that probably works in a computer dumped on the street).
Even Core 2 Duo processors are plenty fast enough if you only run good software and as a result, the latest generation of hardware is more than fast enough for any reasonable task (although, every time computers get twice as fast, proprietary software becomes 3x as slow).
The whole idea is that the user is restricted from modifying the "UEFI" software via additional signatures.
Intel already has "boot guard" (more accurately guard boot) to cryptographically prevent the user from modifying the "UEFI", although it's up to the manufacturer to enable it.
Intel in the past made a mistake, allowing it to be bypassed for the first models with it, but they have now learned to not stuff such basic cryptography up.
Almost all intel laptops and OEM desktops have guard boot enabled (which on the latest models, makes "UEFI" patches or a proprietary BIOS alternative like coreboot cryptographically impossible).
It appears AMD implements the same sort of thing.
While most motherboards produced for "enthusiasts" currently don't enable guard boot, all Microsoft has to do is make windows 11 (or 12) support require it ("for security") and all of the large motherboard brands (there are only a few) will proceed to enable it in all new models.
(Score: 4, Touché) by krishnoid on Sunday February 01, @12:08AM (2 children)
Meh, they know someone would just clone the git.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Sunday February 01, @03:46PM
This is a great joke. 😂 I think some people may have missed it.
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday February 02, @04:07PM
There is no need for a formal succession. Dictates wouldn't work anyway, as there is no central authority that would have the power to do so. There would be a short period of confusion as the new Linus steps up, but the world would follow someone with the technical contribution, desire, and proven management history to do the job. There are already plenty of potential leaders in Linux-land to draw from, so it's really a non-issue. Linus could drop dead today, and a new leader would emerge by tomorrow.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Bentonite on Sunday February 01, @06:18AM
Why would they kill their own people?
What people don't realize, is that Linus is in fact an evil proprietary software developer and proprietary software pusher.
Although, he was the original developer of like ~3 free software programs in the past, he doesn't do that anymore.
While Linux was free in 1992, he allowed Linux to become proprietary again in 1996, meaning only ~2 free programs originally from him still remain (it seems git is likely going to be forcibly rusted and therefore made proprietary, which Linus isn't going to stop).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, @09:23PM (2 children)
"Microsoft would hire an army of bodyguards"
If they could put one of their moles into the Linux establishment, even better.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01, @12:31AM (1 child)
> If they could put one of their moles into the Linux establishment, even better.
That's already been done. Take a look at the Linux foundation's membership and financing. Same for the OSI. Now they're ready to take their aggression to the next stage.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, @12:53PM
*cough* Lennart Poettering *cough*
(Score: 5, Funny) by turgid on Saturday January 31, @10:09PM (1 child)
Don't worry, they're busy working on the HURD just in case anything bad happens.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bentonite on Sunday February 01, @06:42AM
Yes, if Linux is successfully eliminated via leveraging how the licensing is not in order and how it infringes its own license, or another technique, GNU will just assign the needed development work to make Hurd ready (GNU/Linux-libre --> GNU/Hurd).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by psa on Sunday February 01, @04:01AM
So, will those not chosen to attend the meeting stand around outside waiting to see what color the smoke is? Few would argue that Linus stand for Linux before any other commercial or technological allegiances. About how many of the potential successors can we say the same? Even if he is replaced by a group we can see that there is no way to maintain the balance between their powerful employers.
As an aged old-school dev and once bofh, it feels like we have never needed individuals with wisdom and discernment as much as we do today. Many of the great movements that swirled around linux have eaten their own, ousted their founders, rejected the principles they were founded on. We need clarity, integrity, wisdom, and decisiveness, and I worry that those are the characteristics most despised in the new class of technology organizations, which tout community while forgetting why they came together in the first place, and still somehow dance to the tune of the largest IT organizations that now fund them instead of holding the center.
I wish there were more competent alternatives that we could turn to if the miracle of succession does not appear.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday February 01, @05:44AM (5 children)
While this topic is either funny for smart or controversion for dumb (just corrected some obnoxious trollmods above), the reality is more critical.
Based on recent history, if His Supreme Ultramajesty Trump decides to to start special military operation (and the undeclared Viet Nam "war" of past century was exactly that, ongoing Russia's SMO in Ukraine is only a reflection by the the very same diplomatic principle, almost identically worded in official statement to United Nations) against European Union to grab some island or gold or anything, or just decides to introduce trade sanctions for pressure and trampling, GitHub becomes inaccessible in Europe.
It would be illegal for Torvalds to provide anything to his European fellows.
Technically, this already happened to North Korea, Cuba, Persia, and recently to Russia. By respected model of International Law, it may now happen to anybody.
In this case, Linux kernel development must fork. Simple as that. As it already did in countries named.
Linus is not so brave to become a dissident and stand publicly against gov (and he understands under current political atmosphere, he would be locked or deported in no time), so this political threat was preemptively addressed by kernel collective properly. Smart and wise. They are ready.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by turgid on Sunday February 01, @10:37AM (4 children)
I do wonder whether it's time for FOSS people to revisit new OS designs. Back in the 90s when Linux was new, microkernels were the future, and Linus famously chose a monolithic design. At the time, common hardware was very slow compared with the stuff we have now. People were still using the 80306, single CPU, with a 12MHz 16-bit bus to ISA peripherals, with a few megabytes of RAM.
Those days are long gone. SMP came along in the x86 world, along with superscalar, out-of-order gigahertz CPUs with hundreds of megabytes of memory. Then we got 64-bit and NUMA. Here I sit at a PeeCee, nearly six years old, with 32GB RAM and a 12 core/24 thread 64-bit CPU and I can't remember what frequency it runs at. I think it's north of 4GHz and more on a good day.
In the last 35 years, the FOSS ecosystem has come on a long, long way. It has spawned the careers of many millions of developers. There are all sorts of resources out there regarding all aspects of hardware and software. Starting something new shouldn't be anything like as difficult.
It should even be possible to preserve various Linux APIs and to port the device drivers to another GPL system.
If I had the time...
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by suxen on Monday February 02, @01:14PM (3 children)
I think micro-kernels were a red herring. Real problem is retrofitting today's network-centric paradigm into UNIX derived systems. Results in so much cruft, inner-platform effect and other BS. Plan9 is the future or at least it should have been 30 years ago
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday February 02, @02:14PM (2 children)
Even Plan 9 was superseded by Inferno. Why are microkernels a red herring, by the way?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by suxen on Tuesday February 03, @08:50AM (1 child)
OK so very much just an uninformed opinion, I am hardly deep into this. My perception is that for a practical general purpose operating system, a hybrid module, i.e. monolithic but modular kernel, like Linux or Plan9 achieves most of the practical goals of a microkernel with far less engineering overhead.
In terms of Plan9 being superseded by Inferno, that's not really my point. My point is that the predominant computing paradigm at the moment is evolved from archaic mainframe based systems (queue Terry Davis rant, he was right though...), i.e. UNIX and VMS. Had our predominant systems evolved from a network first operating system paradigm, such as plan 9, we would waste less engineering resources compensating for inherent limitations of the underlying architecture and spend more time working on interesting uses of the network.
(Score: 2) by suxen on Tuesday February 03, @11:36AM
*ahem* s/hybrid module/hybrid model/