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Linux 4.15 Becomes Slowest Release Since 2011 (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Linus Torvalds has decided that Linux 4.15 needs a ninth release candidate, making it the first kernel release to need that much work since 2011. Torvalds flagged up the possibility of an extra release candidate last week, with the caveat that "it obviously requires this upcoming week to not come with any huge surprises" after "all the Meltdown and Spectre hoopla" made his job rather more complicated in recent weeks. Fast-forward another week and Torvalds has announced "I really really wanted to just release 4.15 today, but things haven't calmed down enough for me to feel comfy about it."
I prefer Linus's "try to get it right the first time" approach to releases versus the, unfortunately, too common "get it out the door as quickly as possible, we'll fix it later" approach employed by seemingly almost everyone else. (I'm looking directly at you, Microsoft. And Apple's getting a bit of stink-eye, too, given the flurry of patches for the dodgy current macOS and iOS versions.)
Imagine how Linux Kernel development will progress once Linus steps down. He isn't going to live forever, you know. I doubt that his replacement would be as tenacious.