Having someone else manage merges into the stable kernel branch isn't new. In the old kernel dev model (circa 2.x kernels) after the first few patches in a new

Having someone else manage merges into the stable kernel branch isn't new. In the old kernel dev model (circa 2.x kernels) after the first few patches in a new stable kernel, Linus always used to delegate stable maintenance to someone else (Alan Cox) so he had more time to work on the experimental branch. So Alan would maintain 2.0 and Linus 2.1 for example.