So what is going to happen when Linus gets to old to keep on to maintain the kernel ? I know there is a whole team, but he seems to have some kind of executive role in what’s gets released and not.

  • kyub@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    17·
    8 hours ago

    The old question of “what happens when Linus/other senior kernel dev dies” mattered far more like 20+ years ago than it does now. The kernel developers are organized quite well, Linux is in general an extremely well-organized open source project these days, and there are several who could fill in. Linus’ “2nd” is Greg Kroah-Hartman, who is the lead maintainer of the stable kernel branch (i.e. the one most are using). Linus is the lead maintainer of the in-development branch.

    But of course we hope that Linus continues doing this for a long time. Most people never create even one world-changing technology, Linus casually created two (Linux + Git).

  • pelya@lemmy.world
    10·
    9 hours ago

    Creating a kernel is hard, Linux itself is not going anywhere.
    If all current maintainers suddenly disappear, several corporations, who heavily depend on Linux, will maintain their own forks, so we will get Google kernel for phones, Amazon kernel for datacenters, Valve kernel for gaming, and probably some European initiative kernel for PCs and laptops to do document editing.

    • skaffi@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      8 minutes ago

      Say hello to Yet Another Linus Thorvalds Android, or YALTA for short. Name was decided upon at a conference. It was the compromise option, but remember that Android (and now, also androids) are technically still Linux (and now, also Linus).