Linus Torvalds 'starting to get worried' as Linux kernel 5.17 rc6 lands

More by known regressions not being addressed by maintainers than Vladimir Putin’s ‘mental breakdown’

Linux kernel boss Linus Torvalds is "starting to be a bit worried" by lack of progress on version 5.17 of the project.

In his weekly state of the kernel post, he opened with an observation that "whatever crazy things are going on in the world (and I personally had 'Zombie apocalypse' on my bingo card, not 'Putin has a mental breakdown'), it doesn't seem to have affected the kernel much."

But something has affected this development cycle: a number of known regressions that Torvalds said have been known since the January 24 release of version 5.17 rc1.

"They don't seem all that big and scary," he wrote, but he's sufficiently concerned about them to have flagged the possibility of delays to the release of version 5.17 if they're not fixed.

"I think all the affected maintainers know who they are," he wrote, and urged those people who responsible for regressions to "make them a priority".

This version of the kernel otherwise appears to be in decent shape.

Torvalds said some btrfs defrag fixes stand out "not so much because they are enormous, as just because they are bigger than most of the rest, which is pretty small."

Core networking, tracing, and selftests have also attracted his attention.

But overall, Torvalds suggested this release is on track for the usual routine of a seventh release candidate followed by a full release – if those maintainers don't slow things down. ®