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US winter storm forces a break in kernel development

Summary

In January 2024 Linus Torvalds announced an enforced break in kernel development because a winter storm in Oregon had knocked out power and internet at Torvalds’ home. The Finnish-born developer remarked sarcastically that “storm” and “winter” meant little more than some wind and just under minus ten degrees there. Around 100,000 people in the Portland area were without power; during a similar outage, repairs had taken more than a week.

Ideas

  • Development of the main branch depends on a single person.
  • Fallen trees damaged power and communication lines.
  • Planned breaks for travel are common, weather-related ones are not.

Insights

  • Even the world’s largest open source project has a human bottleneck.
  • Infrastructure failures hit decentralised work just as much as central offices.

Facts

  • Torvalds lives in the Portland, Oregon area.
  • About 100,000 residents were affected by the power cut.

References

Critique

  • The report does not say whether the kernel process has a deputy arrangement for such outages.

Recommendations

  • Plan deputies for critical roles in projects.
  • For workplaces on which a lot depends, keep emergency power and a mobile network backup ready.

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