Linux 7.3 replaces Steve French as CIFS maintainer

Sources: mainline MAINTAINERS log, Phoronix report, HN discussion
Summary: The mainline MAINTAINERS log carries a commit by Paulo Alcantara titled "MAINTAINERS: Replace Steve French as CIFS maintainer", merged through the cifs-maintainer-switch-7.3-rc1 tag. Paulo Alcantara and Namjae Jeon take over CIFS and SMB3. Phoronix separately reports that French stepped down for health reasons and, in an update, that he has died, attributing that to a social media post by a Samba developer. No project-controlled or family-controlled source confirms the death, so this entry states only the handover.
Why it matters: The handover is in mainline rather than proposed, so patches for the in-kernel SMB client and for KSMBD go to two new co-maintainers from 7.3 onward.