Mostly nontechnical person here: how much active maintenance does this driver need? To the uninitiated, it sounds like it should be basic and standard.

This doesn't sound like a 40-hour per week kind of a job

Not much, but it does need to be maintained. Every time someone pushes an update to code that the driver uses, something changes in the Linux kernel, or Intel releases be hardware that needs a different register map or whatever, the driver will fail. If nobody steps up to maintain it, it could stop working in a matter of months.

I doubt maintaining a single deriver was their only responsibility.

Stop buying Intel products, got it thanks!

IMO, Intel is circling the drain and will die without intervention. And their death will have some pretty crazy ramifications.

If the US had competent leaders, they’d realize Intel was important to global security, and they’d come up with some sort of way to break up the fab and design business.

No one wants to send their designs to Intel’s fab because they don’t want Intel to copy their homework. That’s why Intel’s design competitors use TSMC. And TSMC scales faster because of increased money and experience.

Without Intel processors, Linux wouldn't have been possible in the first place.

But today we have good processors from many different manufacturers. The Linux community must, and can, stay alive even without the support of one major player.

Hey this is kind of interesting since I just met up with my friend who works for Intel today for his kids first birthday and he was telling me about this issue and how they're trying to get him to be part of a related team (not specifically related to Linux) on top of his other responsibilities...

He went on at some length describing how absolutely absurd the whole structure was of related systems and how it's a miracle any of it works lol

So just stick with what I've been doing and avoid Intel? Got it.

Why did Linux need Intel processors specifically?

Sure, but in the meantime I need to work with what I have... which is Intel (on some machines, at least).

Trump's 100% tariffs on chips made outside the USA is puzzling. It it an attempt to force Intel, who do make chips in the USA, to become more competitive just through bullying everyone? Or does he know it will just cause more trouble and is he trying to drive Intel into the ground for revenge because they took Biden's money? Why is he also demanding that Intel's CEO resign? Does none of it make sense because Trump is a crazy old narcissist who has lost touch with reality and is now losing his mind?

We don't have that many other processors, though. If you look at the desktop, there is AMD and there is Apple silicon which is restricted to Apple products. And then there is nothing. If Intel goes under ground, AMD might become next Intel. It's time (for EU) to invest heavily into RISC-V, the entire stack.

Trump loooves to take action. Coherent plan or direction is irrelevant.

Good luck US, still some to go.

The PC was new. There were only Intels in PCs. Linux was made for the PC.

Backstory: Prof. Tanenbaum was teaching operating systems. His example was MINIX (his own academic example). This motivated one student to try to make a new operating system for PCs, doing some things like the professor, and other things quite differently. This student knew the specifics of the Intels and used them good for performance etc.

ARMs are coming. RISCV are coming. Some Chinese brands have been seen, too.

Neither are commonly available in desktop form factors and they usually require custom builds for each board to work.

There's no way politicians will let one of the most important chip manufacturers die. If push comes to shove, they'll get subsidies

.... Have you seen the competence of the politicians on display in the US right now?