Here's the deal. For all practical purposes, Linux kernel code is maintained by sub-system maintainers, linus is just a stamp-head who merges everything provide

Here's the deal. For all practical purposes, Linux kernel code is maintained by sub-system maintainers, linus is just a stamp-head who merges everything provided by these guys and resolve conflicts, if there any. These guys are veterans in maintaining the sub-systems and make sure code base is clean enough based on linus' guidelines.