There 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.
