El Reg has noted:
Torvalds looses neatened number [release featuring] non-disruptive patches, Z13 support, and more.
[...] The new number isn't a sign of a major upgrade. As we've chronicled, Torvalds thinks that it looks a bit silly when version numbers go beyond x.19.
As the Benevolent Dictator for Life says in his post at the kernel mailing list:
since rc7 [...] It's mainly driver fixes (media, sound, pci, scsi target, drm, thermal..), misc arch updates (nios2 and x86), and scattered fixes elsewhere. Really not a lot during the last week.
After you folks hammered on the 7 release candidates and gave the kernel team bug reports, any drama seems to have been wrung out.
We previously discussed the never-need-to-reboot patching feature that has now been incorporated into the kernel.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday April 13 2015, @04:18PM
Kernel development should be about as exciting as chartered accountancy. Sure, adjust to new hardware features, make improvements to driver interfaces, expose new features that make sense, but the job of the kernel is to keep humming along quietly doing its job.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday April 13 2015, @04:26PM
"Works best when you don't notice it" is an extremely hard field to work in. Everything is good until it's terrible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @05:20PM
“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @05:31PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday April 13 2015, @06:54PM
Good thing it's open source.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"