Morning Brief · November 2nd 2026
Linux 7.4 opens with the biggest merge window in the kernel's history, "full of fixes for issues found by AI"
Linus Torvalds released Linux 7.4-rc1 on Sunday after a of almost 20,000 commits, against a usual 15,000 or so. He described the release as "Large, and full of fixes for issues found by AI," and said AI is increasingly suggesting the patches too, though they "often get rewritten." He would rather AI-found work arrive in the merge window than as fixes during the release-candidate weeks, calling that "a much healthier model."
About a third of the changes are AMD graphics register definitions, and 7.4 is expected to be the next release, which also inflates it. The useful number here is the one nobody has yet: what share of AI-reported bugs maintainers accepted. SourcesB
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This story ran in the Morning Brief of November 2nd 2026.