Lorenzo Stoakes said in a Linux kernel mailing-list message dated November 10, 2026, that AI-generated patch-series throughput had left him without bandwidth for general review outside the areas he maintains. Phoronix reported that he was stepping back from reviewer duties in memory management (MM), core, misc and Rust, while continuing to maintain areas he oversees. Stoakes’s message Phoronix’s report
The key distinction is between review work and maintenance responsibility: Stoakes narrowed the former while continuing the latter.
What changed in Stoakes’s kernel work
In his message, Stoakes said he had divided patches among areas maintained by David, Andrew, Alice and Danilo, so each could handle patches relevant to their subsystems. The post also lists changes to his reviewer roles in MM core, MM misc and MM Rust.
A BPF report points to a narrower trend
In a separate report published November 9, The Register said Linus Torvalds relayed Alexei Starovoitov’s assessment that, in BPF, fixes were arriving faster than new reports. Torvalds said most other areas had not reached that point and described a broader shift as a possibility. The Register’s report
