From what we saw seven days ago and in previous weeks, no one expected a new stable version of the Linux kernel to be released yesterday. We have passed the days of Christmas and New Year's Eve, and both developers and testers have stepped on the brakes a bit. That has caused a slowdown that has made the latest Release Candidates arrive after very calm weeks and their size is really small. A few hours ago, Linus Torvalds launched Linux 5.16-rc8, and once again he has used the adjective "tiny" to define it.
Past these days, everything is expected to return to normal this weekAlthough Torvalds says that they have not all returned to their posts yet and that they expect seven calm days. If nothing happens, and although it has not said so directly, the stable version of Linux 5.16 should arrive this Sunday, January 9, but it could still be delayed if they run into the typical problem that causes releases to be delayed for another week .
Linux 5.16 should arrive on January 9
Unsurprisingly, this is a tiny rc - there really hasn't been much to do while on vacation. Even now, not everyone is necessarily back, and we probably have another very quiet week and then I'm going to do the real 5.16 version and hopefully we're more or less back to normal (and thanks to the people who already know me). They have submitted pending pull requests for 5.17 - it helps me get them sooner as I am unfortunately going to have some trips during the next merge window).
Although everything indicates that yes, if this did not come Sunday 9 I would do it in the next one, the 17th, but it is not expected due to the tranquility that they have experienced during the development. When the time comes, Ubuntu users who want to install it will have to do it on their own, since Canonical includes a kernel in every release and only updates it to correct bugs.