Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Adding more formality around feature inclusion and ejection

[Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>]

On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 09:56:15 +0100
James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:

What exactly do you mean by "feature inclusion"?

Something that requires a new maintainer? As with the bcachefs, the issue
was with how the new maintainer worked with the current workflow.

Maybe you mean "maintainer inclusion and ejection"?

> However, I'm sure others will have different ideas.

The thing is, I believe there's a lot of features and maintainers that are
added. Most go unnoticed as the feature is a niche (much like bcachefs was).

Perhaps we should have a maintainer mentorship program. I try to work with
others to help them become a new maintainer. I was doing that with Daniel
Bristot, and I've done it for Masami Hiramatsu and I'm currently helping
others to become maintainers for the trace and verification tooling.

I share my scripts and explain how to do a pull request. How to use
linux-next and what to and more importantly, what not to send during during
the -rc releases.

I'm sure others have helped developers become maintainers as well. Perhaps
we should get together and come up with a formal way to become a maintainer?
Because honestly, it's currently done by trial and error. I think that
should change.

-- Steve