Linus Torvalds has accepted a change into the Linux kernel that regulates community actions in the event that he and trusted individuals are unable to accept changes to the primary repository "torvalds/linux.git". The plan was prepared by Dan Williams from Intel, who oversees 9 subsystems in the Linux kernel and serves as the chair of the Linux Foundation Technical Committee. The foundation is based on discussions about the vulnerabilities of the kernel development process that took place in December at the "Maintainers Summit 2025".
Despite the distributed nature of kernel development, where more than 100 maintainers work on changes in their repositories, final changes for the main branch of the kernel are promoted through Linus's centralized repository (torvalds/linux.git). In addition to Linus, a few trusted individuals have the right to make changes to the main repository, so, in fact, the torvalds/linux.git repository is not a single point of failure.
In 2018, the project had the experience of preparing the 4.18 kernel release not by Linus Torvalds, but by Greg Kroah-Hartman, after Linus temporarily stepped back from development to reflect on his role in the community and develop his skills in understanding people's emotions and actions in conflict situations. It is expected that when Linus decides to retire, he will smoothly pass his responsibilities to his successor. However, until now, the community has not had a clear action plan for unforeseen situations where the maintainers of the main repository are unable or refuse to continue their work and hand over access to other participants.
According to the adopted plans, in the event of such situations, the organizer of the prompt switch of the development process to a new repository and the election of the main maintainer is appointed by the person responsible for conducting the last Linux kernel maintainers summit or, if this is not possible, the chair of the Technical Advisory Board of the Linux Foundation.
In the event of an incident, the plan requires organizing a meeting of the maintainers who participated in the last Linux kernel maintainers' summit within 72 hours. If no summit has taken place in the last 15 months, the participants will be determined by the Technical Council of the Linux Foundation. The meeting will discuss options for further management of the primary repository and necessary decisions will be made collectively, such as electing a new 'benevolent dictator' or establishing a maintainers' council.
Source: opennet.ru
