The Linux kernel community recently formally formed a "Project Continuity Plan" to set a framework for the succession process when Linus Torvalds no longer serves as the top maintainer one day in the future. This plan aims to clarify how to elect one or more new top maintainers to take over the Linux mainline code base in an orderly transition or emergency situation.
The document, dubbed "a plan of plans" by developers, was drafted by long-time kernel contributor Dan Williams and discussed at the recent Linux Kernel Maintainers Summit in Tokyo. He introduced the proposal as “an uplifting topic related to the fact that we are all going to die,” prompting knowing laughter. In an interview after the meeting, Torvalds said that the reason why this topic was officially put on the agenda was that his last contract with the Linux Foundation expired in the third quarter of last year, and members of the Foundation's Technical Advisory Board were very aware of this process. Although the subsequent contract has been renewed, it also prompted the community to think more systematically about the long-term continuation of the project.
It is worth noting that this plan does not name a "successor", but focuses on establishing a clear decision-making mechanism. The document envisions that in the worst-case scenario or when an orderly handover occurs, a maintainer group similar to an "election meeting" will be convened to focus on evaluating candidates, with the long-term health of the project as the highest priority. Some defenders at the meeting joked that this group could be like a secret meeting to elect a new pope, locking everyone in a room, and then using a wisp of white smoke as a signal to the outside world after a decision is made.
From a risk management perspective, this initiative was positioned to address the classic “bus factor” problem—that is, what would happen to the project if a key person “got hit by a bus.” Currently, Torvalds' central position in Linux development means that the project's "bus factor" is still close to 1: in theory, if he were suddenly absent, the merge and final release process could be affected. However, in actual operation, both Torvalds and other top maintainers have mentioned many times that if someone really needs to temporarily take over the role of "top penguin", the most natural candidate will almost certainly be the current stable version kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman.
Torvalds also gave his own response to the widespread comment that Greg KH is regarded as a "designated spare tire." He pointed out: "The problem is that Greg was not called Greg from the beginning. Before Greg, there was Andrew Morton and Alan Cox; after Greg, there will be Shannon and Steve." In his view, the key is not a specific name, but whether the development community can trust a person or a group. This kind of trust is based on long-term collaboration and integration. “You have to exist in the community long enough for everyone to understand how you do things, but ‘long enough’ does not mean it has to be thirty years.”
By formally writing down such a set of processes, the Linux kernel community attempts to transform years of relatively implicit consensus and convention into a clearly visible and enforceable system. Now that the size and influence of projects have far exceeded that of ordinary open source software, how to strike a balance between respecting individual contributions and maintaining the stability of technical directions is becoming a governance issue that Linux and even the entire open source ecosystem must face.