Linus Torvalds has released version 7.0 of the Linux kernel.

As The Register has previously reported, kernel boss Linus Torvalds doesn’t think kernel version numbers signify anything important, but he feels that once a release series reaches x.19 it’s worth rolling over to x.0 to avoid confusion.

His Sunday release announcement for version 7.0 therefore represents a normal kernel release that just happens to feature a round number.

However, Torvalds’ release announcement features something a little unusual.

“The last week of the release continued the same ‘lots of small fixes’ trend, but it all really does seem pretty benign, so I've tagged the final 7.0 and pushed it out,” he wrote.

“I suspect it's a lot of AI tool use that will keep finding corner cases for us for a while, so this may be the ‘new normal’ at least for a while. Only time will tell.”

That’s an interesting observation ...