In the Linux ecosystem, maintainers are gatekeepers. They take the ultimate decision as to which patches are accepted and they are entrusted to lead their subsystem in a future-proof direction. Discussions and decisions are public via mailing lists, but what does an actual workflow look like? Are there any special tools involved? What equipment is used? What helps in handling difficult corner cases? How do maintainers collaborate? How much time does it take?

This talk provides some insight how Wolfram handles this for the I2C subsystem, which is one puzzle piece of the kernel which simply has to work.