- Linus Torvalds called Linux 7.2-rc7 part of a "new normal" of oversized release candidates
- Torvalds attributes the volume of fixes to reviews by various AI tools, a week after calling rc6 the biggest in years by commit count
- The growth is in late-cycle bug fixes rather than features, and Torvalds credits AI review rather than AI authorship, with humans still writing and submitting the patches
Modern coding approaches dictate that Release Candidates should be expected to shrink as patches and code fixes get increasingly smaller as the software enters what many call a "stabilization phase".