get_maintainer change would stop auto-CCing every patch to LKML

Konstantin Ryabitsev has proposed changing the kernel's get_maintainer script so it no longer adds linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org to every patch submission. The goal is to cut the volume that has turned LKML into a near-duplicate of subsystem traffic.

The MAINTAINERS entry known as THE REST matches every file in the tree. As a result, the script currently CCs LKML whether or not the touched code already has its own list. In the week of 1-7 October 2026, LKML carried about 13,641 messages (roughly 1,950 a day); ninety percent of them also went to at least one other list. With about 2,100 subscribers, that works out to roughly 29 million deliveries a week for LKML alone.

The issue was raised at the 2026 Maintainer Summit. Consensus there, Ryabitsev wrote, was that always including linux-kernel was never the intent. Under the change, THE REST is used only when no other matching section supplies a mailing list for a file. Orphaned or list-less files still reach LKML, so every patch still lands on at least one public list.

Not everyone is fully comfortable. Xen maintainer Jürgen Groß said he has repeatedly caught problematic patches that never reached the xen or x86 lists precisely because they still appeared on LKML; losing that catch-all would force broader subscriptions or lore queries. Others asked whether every subsystem list is archived on lore, and whether a dedicated archival address should replace the blanket LKML CC.

Ryabitsev floated patches@lists.linux.dev, an existing no-subscriber archive list, as an always-on dump that would preserve a full public record without burdening 2,100 inboxes. Maintainers who want the old firehose could then query both LKML and that archive and deduplicate. He also agreed to update submitting-patches documentation, which still tells contributors to use LKML by default, in a follow-up revision.

The patch remains under discussion; the central tradeoff is quieter, more targeted delivery versus the cross-subsystem visibility some maintainers still rely on.