Linux community drafts succession plan to replace Linus Torvalds

The core Linux kernel community has drafted a project‑continuity plan describing how it would replace Linus Torvalds as the top‑level maintainer if something happened to him or if he retired. The draft was written by longtime contributor Dan Williams and was discussed at the Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit in Tokyo.

Torvalds said he has no plans to retire, joking, "My plan seems to just be 'I will live forever.'" The document does not name a single successor. Instead it sets out a process for selecting one or more maintainers, including convening a conclave to weigh options and maximize long‑term project health; one maintainer in Tokyo joked the group should be locked in a room and that a puff of white smoke be sent out when a decision was reached.

The draft frames this as a way to address the project's current bus‑factor of one. In practice, the role would likely fall to Greg Kroah‑Hartman, the stable‑branch maintainer, who has served as an interim head before when Torvalds briefly stepped away in 2018 to work on how he treated other developers.

Dirk Hohndel said "the backup right now is Greg KH," and Torvalds noted that successors need to be people "that the development community can trust," citing earlier maintainers such as Andrew Morton and Alan Cox. Rather than replacing Torvalds with another single benevolent dictator, people at the summit suggested distributing top‑level duties among multiple trusted developers.

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