On the scalability of Linus

“The Linux kernel development process stands out in a number of
ways; one of those is the fact that there is exactly one person who
can commit code to the “official” repository. There are many
maintainers looking after various subsystems, but every patch they
merge must eventually be accepted by Linus Torvalds if it is to get
into the mainline. Linus’s unique role affects the process in a
number of ways; for example, as this article is being written,
Linus has just returned from a vacation which resulted in nothing
going into the mainline for a couple of weeks. There are more
serious concerns associated with the single-committer model,
though, with scalability being near the top of the list.

“Some LWN readers certainly remember the 2.1.123 release in
September, 1998. That kernel failed to compile due to the
incomplete merging (by Linus) of some frame buffer patches. A
compilation failure in a development kernel does not seem like a
major crisis, but this mistake served as a flash point for anger
which had been growing in the development community for a while:
patches were increasingly being dropped and people were getting
tired of it. At the end of a long and unpleasant discussion, Linus
threw up his hands and walked away:

“Quite frankly, this particular discussion (and others before
it) has just made me irritable, and is ADDING pressure. Instead,
I’d suggest that if you have a complaint about how I handle
patches, you think about what I end up having to deal with for five
minutes.”

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