[Ksummit-2013-discuss] [ATTEND] What to do when a maintainer is no longer available

[NeilBrown]

On Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:45:51 -0400 Steven Rostedt <rostedt at goodmis.org> wrote:

> Recently we lost a major Open Source developer to a tragic accident.
> Seth Vidal wasn't a kernel developer, but his death reminds us of how
> any one of us can leave this planet at any time. The end of last year, a
> major kernel maintainer had an accident that caused him to leave the
> community for several months.
> 
> As with all Open Source projects, the Linux kernel is not a product from
> a company, but it comes from a community. A community made up of people,
> where a single person has large control over vital parts of the kernel.
> Some parts of the kernel is held by several people, but there are
> several people that I could imagine would cause severe disruption if
> something were to happen to them. Do we all have backups that can take
> over if something unexpected happen to us?
> 
> We are not getting any younger. Life's reality is that we can perish at
> any time. I would like to discuss ways that we can help the community to
> move forward in case something happens to any one of us.
> 
> Perhaps we should all have someone as a backup? Let others know who you
> trust to work as the maintainer if something were to happen to you. We
> can have limits to what that person can do in case you are still around
> but only monumentally incapacitated.
> 
> I rather have something in place before it happens. Unfortunately, it
> will happen. It's just a matter of time.
> 

This seems to connect to the "depth of maintainers tree" issue that
Jiri Kosina raised.
If there were more layers in the hierarchy and less branching at each point,
then it might be reasonable to expect each maintainer to know what was going
on one level down, and who was backing up whom etc.

My feeling is that "preparing for tragedy" isn't really a useful response to
this sort of reality.  Rather we should focus on "building for health" - aim
to make the community as healthy as we can.  That brings real value now, and
should mean we are more resilient when tragedy hits.

Having someone as a backup is certainly a good idea, but I don't think the
position of "assistant maintainer" really has a lot of appeal!  It would be
much easier to fill a vacuum after it has been created than to prepare people
'just in case'.

NeilBrown
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