The Plan For Linux After Torvalds Has a Kernel of Truth: There Isn't One (theregister.com)
(Friday August 15, 2025 @11:50AM (msmash)
from the benevolent-overlord-wanted dept.)
- Reference: 0178687758
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/08/15/1549253/the-plan-for-linux-after-torvalds-has-a-kernel-of-truth-there-isnt-one
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/14/the_plan_for_linux_after/
The Linux kernel project [1]lacks a formal succession plan for when Linus Torvalds steps down, Register columnist Rupert Goodwins writes. Torvalds has said "there's no need for formality" and that succession will occur naturally through community trust. "The next benevolent overlord will appear naturally," Torvalds believes.
Goodwins calls this approach dangerous, noting that "succession is always a time of uncertainty for those who like the way things are, and opportunity for those who do not." The kernel project faces existing tensions including overstretched maintainers doing "two jobs, the one they're paid for, and the Linux kernel work," commercial pressures from companies like Red Hat, and increasing maintenance burdens from automated bug reports. "Hope, as they say, is not a strategy," Goodwins writes.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/14/the_plan_for_linux_after/
Goodwins calls this approach dangerous, noting that "succession is always a time of uncertainty for those who like the way things are, and opportunity for those who do not." The kernel project faces existing tensions including overstretched maintainers doing "two jobs, the one they're paid for, and the Linux kernel work," commercial pressures from companies like Red Hat, and increasing maintenance burdens from automated bug reports. "Hope, as they say, is not a strategy," Goodwins writes.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/14/the_plan_for_linux_after/