[MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Prep?

[MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Prep?

[Linus Torvalds]

So it's entirely possible that I'm not on the right lists, so I
haven't seen an agenda for Thursday's maintainer summit yet.

But what happens every year is that one of the slots is the "how is it
working for Linus" thing, and every year I end up saying that it's
working well for *me*, and that the real question should be what the
pain points for *others* are.

So since my travel starts tomorrow (it turns out that Richmond is not
a lively transportation hub, and getting there from the West coast
takes most of the day and I didn't want to risk a lost connection and
not even make it in time), I thought I'd ask for some kind of prep for
that slot, assuming it's there.

And I'm not saying that I personally *am* one of the pain points, but
hey, I'm also not saying that it's impossible, so I'm also cc'ing Jon
explicitly in case he'd be willing to gather anonymous entries and
people feel uncomfortable emailing me about their issues. Now, I know
some of you definitely have no problem at all telling me I have
issues, but let's not assume that holds for everybody.

I didn't ask Jon before, so here goes: Jonathan?  Would you be willing
to take some input from people, and just scrub the names off it, and
forward some kind of word cloud of issues (or honestly, just the
otherwise unedited emails) to me? I think people see you as neutral
enough that nobody would worry about any collusion here... I'm not
asking for more than "a bullet point or two about what is a main
concern".

And hey, anybody who is comfortable with it - feel free to just email
me directly too.

But I would suggest *not* replying to the list, because what I don't
want to see is some kind of discussion of people *together*, but
literally hear *individual* concerns, to see what the problem points
on people's minds are (ie explicitly not some kind of "Oh, yeah,
that's a good point" reaction to what somebody else brought up).

Maybe nobody answers. Maybe there are no obvious patterns of
commonalities. And don't get me wrong - despite that "I hope you can
email Jon" thing, I'm not looking explicitly for "the problem is you,
Linus" comments, but just "what's the biggest issue(s) that annoys you
in the daily grind". Jon would hopefully be an option just for people
who are shy and want to be a bit more indirect about it.

On that "people who are shy" note: I do wish we could have less of a
"loud people talking" set of sessions. That was one of the comments
last year. I don't think any of us are really shrinking violets /
wallflowers, but we definitely have people who are more inclined to
talk over others than some others.

As one of the loud people myself, it's not been much of an issue for
me personally, but I think it would be good to have some kind of
moderation.

Anyway, that's my small attempt at having *some* prep for Thursday,

                   Linus

Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Prep?

[Jonathan Corbet]

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> I didn't ask Jon before, so here goes: Jonathan?  Would you be willing
> to take some input from people, and just scrub the names off it, and
> forward some kind of word cloud of issues (or honestly, just the
> otherwise unedited emails) to me?

Yes, I would be happy to do that.  I've gotten one email already;
anybody else with something to pass on is encouraged to send it my way.

Thanks,

jon

Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Prep?

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 12:10:01PM -0700, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:
> 
> > I didn't ask Jon before, so here goes: Jonathan?  Would you be willing
> > to take some input from people, and just scrub the names off it, and
> > forward some kind of word cloud of issues (or honestly, just the
> > otherwise unedited emails) to me?
> 
> Yes, I would be happy to do that.  I've gotten one email already;
> anybody else with something to pass on is encouraged to send it my way.

Thanks, Jon!  I was going to send out an anonymous Google Form that
invited people to send up to 3 things that they were going well, and 3
things that was making them unhappy, in preparation for a "Are
Maintainers Happy?" session (which is a spin on the "Is Linus Happy"
session that we've sometimes had in the past), but since Jon has
volunteered, lets stick with that.

I'd also like to ask attendees to think about specific proposals to
address Maintainer Burnout.  Given the very long thread about
Maintainer Burnout, we've scheduled 60 minutes on the schedule for it.

The current draft agenda is attached below.

					- Ted


			Maintainer's Summit
			 Omni Richmond Hotel
			 November 16, 2023

8:00  Hot breakfast and morning refreshments
9:00  Welcome and Agenda Bashing
9:30  Trust and Maintenace of File Systems
10:00 Next steps for Rust -- are we ready to commit?
10:30 Break
11:00 Maintainer Burnout
11:30 Maintainer Burnout (continued)
12:00 Lunch
1:30  Maintainers Support Group
2:00  Are Maintainers Happy?
2:30  Group Photograph
3:00  Break
3:30  Free time
6:00  Transportation loads for dinner