The 2024 Maintainers Summit: Articles in LWN
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Committing to Rust in the kernel
The project to enable the writing of kernel code in Rust has been underway for several years, and each kernel release includes more Rust code. Even so, some developers have expressed frustration at the time it takes to get new functionality merged, and an air of uncertainty still hangs over the project. At the 2024 Maintainers Summit, Miguel Ojeda led a discussion on the status of Rust in the kernel and whether the time had come to stop considering it an experimental project. There were not answers to all of the questions, but it seems clear that Rust in the kernel will continue steaming ahead.
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Tools for kernel developers
Konstantin Ryabitsev started a session on development tooling at the 2024 Maintainers Summit by saying that he does not want to be a "wrecking ball". If a given workflow is working for people, he does not want to try to force any sort of change. That said, he has ideas for how he can continue his work on providing better tooling for the development community.
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Considering kernel pass-through interfaces
The kernel normally sits firmly between user space and the system's peripheral devices, and provides a standard interface to those devices. At times, though, a more direct interface to a device is desired — but such interfaces can be controversial. At the 2024 Maintainers Summit, the assembled developers considered a specific case — the proposed fwctl subsystem — as well as the role of such drivers in general.
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The uncertain future of kernel regression tracking
Tracking of regressions seems like an important task for any project; there is no other way to ensure that known problems are fixed. At the 2024 Maintainers Summit, though, Thorsten Leemhuis, who has been doing that work for the kernel, expressed some doubts about whether it is worth continuing. The result was an energetic session on how regression tracking should be done better, and how this work should be supported.
Leemhuis began by saying that he is thinking about giving up on regression tracking. The funding that was supporting this work has gone away. On top of that, this work has resulted in a number of "annoying" discussions with maintainers who do not appreciate being nagged about open regressions. He does not really even know what Linus Torvalds expects with regard to regression tracking and fixes. Burnout is a problem for many maintainers, and being pressed to fix regressions can make it worse, but burnout is a problem for Leemhuis as well
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The 2024 Maintainers Summit
The kernel Maintainers Summit is an annual, invitation-only gathering of a few dozen of the top kernel subsystem maintainers. The 2024 Summit was held on September 17 in Vienna, Austria, immediately prior to the Linux Plumbers Conference. LWN was represented there by Jonathan Corbet (the kernel's documentation maintainer).