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

[John W. Linville]

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 at 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...

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.