Might as well blame AI for this giant Linux release candidate, says Linus Torvalds
- ID
- 22048
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 07 Sep 2026, 10:32 AM
- Fetched
- 07 Sep 2026, 1:17 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/09/07/might-as-well-blame-ai-for-this-giant-linux-release-candidate-says-linus-torvalds/5294697
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 2.5
- Created
- 07 Sep 2026, 1:18 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
Linus Torvalds released Linux 7.3 rc2, noting it was unusually large for an rc2—which is typically the quietest release candidate. He couldn't pinpoint a single cause, citing fixes across filesystems, DRM, networking, BPF, and driver trees, and jokingly blamed AI. The prior week he admitted a self-inflicted complication from doing a system upgrade mid-merge-window.
Why it matters
Little actionable takeaway here—Torvalds himself says nothing looks odd and the AI blame is a joke. If you track kernel releases, note that 7.3 rc2 is bigger than normal, but there's no evidence AI-generated patches are materially changing kernel development yet.
Discussion angle
Is the 'blame AI' joke a throwaway, or a early signal that LLM-generated patches are starting to show up in kernel contribution volume—and would we even be able to tell?