It’s unfortunate the number of significant Linux engineering losses at Intel this year. Beyond the staffing reductions throughout the company, seeing the loss of Linux engineering talent and many of their open-source contributors outside of kernel space too has been especially hard hitting to see. Intel for years has been very well regarded for their prolific open-source contributions and typically leading early hardware enablement within the Linux kernel, compiler toolchains, and related components. There’s another hit to the Intel Linux team with one of their USB4/Thunderbolt maintainers departing the company.
Queued on Friday to the Thunderbolt “next” Git branch is a patch making a MAINTAINERS file update. Intel engineer and Thunderbolt expert Mika Westerberg wrote:
“MAINTAINERS: Update Michael Jamet’s maintainer entries
Michael Jamet is about to continue his professional journey outside of Intel and is stepping down as maintainer of Thunderbolt/USB4 subsystem, and the networking driver. Move him from MAINTAINERS to CREDITS.
Thank you, Michael!”
Jamet helped oversee the Linux Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt Network drivers in the kernel. According to LinkedIn, Jamet has been the Head of Cloud and Software Engineering at Intel for the past decade. He led the THunderbolt/USB4 software group across US, Israel, and India.