In his Linux 7.4-rc2 announcement, Linus Torvalds called it a big rc for two reasons: code he held back from a record rc1, and “various AI fixes.” Since Anthropic’s Mythos bug-finding model arrived in April, projects have been buried in AI-found flaws. Microsoft fixed a record 974 in September, and Oracle fixed 1,449 in one month.
The hopeful part is about eBPF. “Alexei claims that on the bpf side at least the fixes are now coming in faster than the new reports, and that sounds lovely if true,” Torvalds wrote. Most other areas aren’t there yet, “but it’s at least a sign that we _may_ be starting to see the tide starting to turn. Don’t hold your breath.”
My take
That’s the first good news on the patchpocalypse in a while. If fixes can outrun reports in one subsystem, the rest can get there too. Until then, keep patching on a schedule. I covered rc2’s FAT32 speedup earlier.
God Bless, and Use the Source!
