linus torvalds is the current maintainer of the linux kernel.
linus torvalds is the current maintainer of the linux kernel.
who is the current maintainer of the linux kernel ​?
linus torvalds
in the linux kernel development community, linus torvalds has made strong statements on the issue of binary-only modules, asserting: "i "refuse" to even consider tying my hands over some binary-only module", and continuing: "i want people to know that when they use binary-only modules, it's their problem." in 2008, 176 linux kernel developers signed a "position statement on linux kernel modules" that stated "we, the undersigned linux kernel developers, consider any closed-source linux kernel module or driver to be harmful and undesirable... we have repeatedly found them to be detrimental to linux users, businesses, and the greater linux ecosystem." the linux kernel maintainer greg kroah-hartman has stated that it is illegal to redistribute closed source modules for the gnu general public license-licensed linux kernel.
proprietary device driver
a developer who wants to change the linux kernel starts with developing and testing that change. depending on how significant the change is and how many subsystems it modifies, the change will either be submitted as a single patch or in multiple patches of source code. in case of a single subsystem that is maintained by a single maintainer, these patches are sent as e-mails to the maintainer of the subsystem with the appropriate mailing list in cc. the maintainer and the readers of the mailing list will review the patches and provide feedback. once the review process has finished the subsystem maintainer accepts the patches in the relevant git kernel tree. if the changes to the linux kernel are bug fixes that are considered important enough, a pull request for the patches will be sent to torvalds within a few days. otherwise, a pull request will be sent to torvalds during the next merge window. the merge window usually lasts two weeks and starts immediately after the release of the previous kernel version. the git kernel source tree names all developers who have contributed to the linux kernel in the "credits" directory and all subsystem maintainers are listed in "maintainers".
linux kernel