Some Networking Fixes Being Diverted To Linux 7.4, AI/LLM Activity Still Increasing

With the vast array of wired and wireless networking drivers within the Linux kernel and range of protocols and other networking features, it's a big expanse of code for AI/LLM agents to analyze and critique. The Linux networking developers have acknowledged being "complete overwhelmed" by the AI/LLM-driven patch activity and bug reports as well as battling against AI slop patches. Even though Linux 7.3 stable won't be out for another three weeks, some networking fixes are already being diverted to the next kernel version.

Rather than continuing to land more fixes in Linux 7.3 for AI/LLM driven fixes that aren't necessarily being experienced by legitimate end-users or for more niche coding issues, some networking fixes are now being held back for the Linux 7.4 cycle. Red Hat's Paolo Abeni sent out today's networking pull request of fixes for Linux 7.3-rc6 and noted:

"We are actively retargeting several non-urgent fixes towards next, but the traffic on the ML looks ever-increasing, and propagating the push-back towards subsystems is not immediate."

There still are many legitimate networking fixes that were merged this week from slab-out-of-bounds reads to various wired and WiFi driver issues. Plus also updating the maintainers entry with longtime Linux developer Eric Dumazet retiring from Google.

The full list of networking fixes for this week's Linux 7.3 Git can be found via this pull request.