Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Time to call it quits for the maintainer summit?

On Sun, 09 Aug 2026 13:04:33 -0600
Jonathan Corbet <[email protected]> wrote:

> We could perhaps do better, maybe with a rule that N% of the seats
> should be filled by first-time attendees.  But we do also have to be
> sure that the right people are in the room handle the topics under
> consideration, and that will inevitably include a number of old-timers
> who have been there before.

The thing is, we need people there that are responsible for the actions
decided at the conference. Getting new folks that do not have a stake in
the decisions is not going to be helpful. This is one reason the same
people are there all the time. They are usually the maintainers that may be
most affected by the decisions made.

For instance, last year the session about best practices with linux-next[1],
DRM was brought up as one of the subsystems that did a lot of rebases.
Without Dave Airlie there to explain why he does it the way he does, there
may have been decisions made that could have negatively impacted the DRM
subsytem.

What is the goal of Maintainers Summit? Is it to fix issues that we are
currently having with the process? If so, it is best to get the people
there that are having the issues and those that can help solve them. It
should not be a vanity affair where people can have bragging rights for
attending.

This should not hinder new people from being invited. As the kernel
changes, new people start to have more stake in the kernel. People like
Miguel and I would even argue for Lorenzo ;-)

-- Steve


[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1050027/