From phoronix.comThere is yet more apparent fallout from Intel's recent layoffs/restructurings as it impacts the Linux kernel... The coretemp driver that provides CPU core temperature monitoring support for all Intel processors going back many years is now set to an orphaned state with the former driver maintainer no longer at Intel and no one immediately available to serve as its new maintainer.
A patch was posted a few minutes ago on the Linux kernel mailing list to mark the coretemp driver as orphaned. Longtime Intel Linux engineer Dave Hansen commented on the patch:
"This maintainer's email no longer works. Remove it from MAINTAINERS.
Also mark the driver as Orphaned for now."
The patch removes Fenghua Yu as the coretemp hardware monitoring driver maintainer and shifts the driver status from "Maintained" to "Orphan".
Fenghua Yu is no longer at Intel and was another Intel Linux driver engineer for years. Back in February I wrote about curious Intel Linux driver maintainer changes in recent days. There I noted Fenghua Yu was stepping away from maintaining the Intel IDXD data accelerator driver as well as being the maintainer of the Resource Director Technology (RDT). At the time it was stated the maintainership changes were due to a job transition.
Now it turns out Fenghua Yu is no longer at Intel given the "email no longer works" and removal from the Coretemp driver. In fact, I've since confirmed Fenghua Yu is now employed by NVIDIA.
Separately last month another Intel Linux driver was orphaned due to layoffs at the company amid other Intel Linux engineers also leaving. There were also other Intel driver maintainer changes in Linxu 6.17.
It certainly surprises me Intel has no immediate replacement to serve as the maintainer of the Coretemp driver for something as basic and fundamental as CPU temperature monitoring on Linux... And with Intel's longtime Linux reputation for their relentless open-source work and timely hardware enablement facing clear damage following the latest restructuring at the company. Hopefully one steps up soon or Intel at least finds the resources to get new CPU support upstreamed pre-launch without a former maintainer as it would be pretty surprising to see the level of Intel Linux hardware support regress to the point of not even having working CPU temperature monitoring on Linux with future processors.
UPDATE: It's even worse today... Additional Intel Linux Drivers Left Orphaned & Maintainers Let Go
From phoronix.comWell, it's an unpleasant afternoon in Linux land with more signs of the ongoing impact from Intel's corporate-wide restructuring. Just after writing about Intel's CPU temperature monitoring driver now left unmaintained/orphaned, more patches hit the public Linux kernel mailing list to mark additional Intel drivers as orphaned and removing maintainer entries for Linux developers no longer at Intel.
One of the new patches today drops one of the maintainers of the Intel Ethernet RDMA driver. The Intel Ethernet RDMA driver is still maintained as one other Intel engineer was serving as co-maintainer but Mustafa Ismail is no longer at Intel.
One of the other Linux drivers now orphaned is the Intel PTP DFL ToD driver. This follows other recent Intel FPGA DFL maintainer changes. The Intel FPGA DFL ToD driver is for the time-of-day device on their FPGA cards. This patch marks the Intel PTP DFL ToD driver as orphaned with Tianfei Zhang no longer at Intel.
The Intel WWAN IOSM driver is one of the other drivers now orphaned by today's patches. This comes as maintainer M Chetan Kumar is no longer at Intel. Intel exited the WWAN and modem business several years ago so this orphaning isn't entirely surprising but unfortunate for anyone that might still have an Intel M.2 modem in use. This driver was in use by some Chromebook devices too beyond conventional Linux laptop/desktop use. The driver is being left in the kernel for now at least but could be subject to bit-rot and eventual removal without anyone left maintaining it.
Another patch drops one of the Intel Keem Bay DRM driver maintainers as no longer at the company but there was another co-maintainer listed. Intel had an engineer helping to maintain the Linux kernel's Kprobes code but that too is no more with Anil S Keshavamurthy no longer at Intel to oversee the kernel probes code to help with debugging and performance profiling.
Intel also had two engineers working on the T7XX 5G WWAN driver but that too is no more
Some of this will hurt Intel when it comes to servers, where Linux dominates. They've already lost a lot of that market share to AMD following their 13th and 14th gen fiasco.
