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

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@kernel.org>]

Em Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:27:50 -0400
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> escreveu:

> 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).

On a side note: I never used myself bcachefs, and I'm not aware of its
current status and how much it depends on the current maintainer.

Yet, IMO, I don't like the idea that, if a maintainer leaves the
project for whatever reason (including misbehavior), features would
be excluded - even if they're experimental.

So, I'd say that, except if we would be willing to face legal issues, 
or the feature is really bad, the best would be to give at least one
or two kernel cycles to see if someone else steps up - and if the
feature is experimental(*), perhaps move it to staging while nobody
steps up.


(*) where IMHO it should be sitting in the first place when it got
    merged, being an experimental feature.

> 
> 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.

Agreed with training: this can help getting things right.

Thanks,
Mauro