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

On Mon, 10 Aug 2026 at 17:26, Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 08:10:21AM +1000, Dave Airlie wrote:
> ...
> > I think people really have a misconception about what goes on at the
> > maintainer summit, the best explanation I've been given was that it is
> > Linus's staff meeting. The people that Linus works with closest, get
> > invited to talk to Linus and help him figure out where the overall
> > ship is going and where things are going wrong.
> ...
> > Your language choice already makes it feel like you see it as some
> > elite or special group. It's a bunch of technical project managers
> > talking about the processes of producing the kernel. If a talk about
> > the technical content of the kernel sneaks in it's very rare and also
> > usually not of interest to half the room.
> ...
> >
> > > I mean I don't know, maybe it's necessary to run it as a tight ship of
> > > trusted people, but I think we should at least be more clear about that.
>
> I mean this is kinda my point.
>
> It is being advertised as X but is actually Y. So say it's Y.
>
> That's not what Ted's posts or the write ups or generally any comms about the MS
> say it is.
>
> The CFP-ish bit is probably pretty redundant too on this basis?

In my opinion, quite a lot of the problems that get raised by the CFP
on this list, often get resolved on this list, which to my mind
suggests we just need to have a better year round maintainers list
that doesn't get consumed by patches or internal subsystem matters.

>
> > >
> > > However I wonder whether we should look at an alternative approach like
> > > those with M: entries in MAINTAINERS voting on topics, or something
> > > similar.
> >
> > Voting on what though, I'm already over the number of times
> > maintainers with small potato problems think that the lives of
> > maintainers with big potato problems would be much simpler if they
> > just adopted their niche one-person mutt based review process.
>
> Ah good to know core mm is small potatoes ;)

I was more referring to the idea that voting would make any sense in
that forum, I do believe mm should be well represented, but also you
have your own very successful forum, and maybe the mm leadership can
meet at LSFMM and pick 1 or 2 delegates to send to the MS every year,
and they would get auto accepted, this of course wouldn't stop
additional mm folks from attending but at least make sure there are
voices in the room.

Dave.