Earlier this month Linus Torvalds shared his plans for avoiding the Linux 6.7 release on New Year's Eve and to delay the final v6.7 release instead to 7 January and thereby mark the Linux 6.8 merge window opening on 8 January. That's going according to plan with Linux 6.7-rc8 having been released a few minutes ago.
Linus Torvalds wrote in the 6.7-rc8 announcement :
"So as expected, pretty much nothing happened over the holiday week. We've got literally just 45 files changed, and almost a third of those files aren't even kernel code (ie things like selftests, scripting, Kconfig and maintainer file updates). And some of the rest is prep-work and cleanups for future (real) changes.
But we do have a couple of real fixes in there, and I suspect we'll get a few more next week as people come back from their food-induced torpor.
So rc8 is mostly just a placeholder, and a "I do rc's each week, whether they matter or not"...
And hey, regardless of whether all you peeps are interested in testing another rc or not, here's to hoping you all had a good 2023, and wishes for an even better 2024!"
There are many great features of Linux 6.7 for when it ships in one week.