The Linux kernel community is mourning the loss of Steve French, a foundational contributor and the longtime maintainer of the Common Internet File System (CIFS) and SMB3 code. The news of his passing was confirmed by Samba developer Jeremy Allison of CIQ via LinkedIn.
French had been a central figure in Linux file system development since 2002, when he began upstreaming the CIFS VFS client. Throughout his career, he held engineering roles at IBM and later at Microsoft, where he worked on Azure Storage while continuing his upstream maintenance responsibilities. His work expanded in recent years to include the KSMBD in-kernel SMB server implementation.
Prior to his passing, a patch was merged into Linux 7.3 officially transitioning the maintenance role. Paulo Alcantara and Namjae Jeon have been appointed as the new co-maintainers for the CIFS/SMB3 subsystem, ensuring continuity for the project. French’s contributions over more than two decades have been instrumental in integrating robust SMB support into the Linux ecosystem.