Linux kernel community drafts contingency “plan for a plan” to replace Linus Torvalds

It has been over 34 years since the Linux kernel was created by Linus Torvalds back in September 1991, and the Finnish software engineer has been at its helm the whole way. The kernel community now admits that it could do with a contingency plan moving forward, and a “project continuity” announcement sets the basis for what will happen once the time comes to replace Torvalds and other high-level contributors.

Authored by contributor Dan Williams, it’s currently described as a “plan for a plan” and is clearly in the very early stages of a transitional period for the torvalds/linux.git repository, currently owned by Linus himself. It is presented as a follow-up to the 2025 Maintainers Summit that took place at the tail end of last year, which kicked off succession discussions.

Linux kernel community plans to replace Linus Torvalds… eventually

In a recent GitHub commit, Williams outlines the fact that “over 100 maintainers” continue to work on changing their own repositories; however, the final step remains centralized – all changes must be pulled into the mainline repository. This critical step continues to be performed by Torvalds, though occasionally others have had to step in.

Williams gives the Linux 4.19 release as an example, which was overseen by Greg Kroah-Hartman, while Torvalds stepped away from his duties for a brief period. Torvalds later admitted to “unprofessional” behavior in an apology post – of course, that’s all in the past, but it highlights the need for someone to be there once he retires from his role.

“Should the maintainers of that [Linux kernel] repository become unwilling or unable to do that work going forward (including facilitating a transition), the project will need to find one or more replamcents without delay.”

Dan Williams, via GitHub

In the commit, it reveals there will soon be a plan put in place, putting forward a discussion with those invited, “either online or in-person,” to contribute to the maintainer role. The meeting, chaired by an organizer, will “consider options for the ongoing management of the top-level kernel repository,” adding that it should maximize “the long term health of the project and its community”.

The next steps of this process will be decided within the next two weeks. In a previous interview, Linus Torvalds highlights that the core Linux kernel community “doing the real work” is “getting gray and old,” but highlights that there are still plenty of new people onboard the project. The oldest contributors have simply moved into “maintenance and management” roles.

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Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is most responsible for reporting on and editing news. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.

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