There’s the usual flurry of last minute fixes and other items being herded into the Linux 7.0 codebase today right ahead of the merge window being closed with the imminent Linux 7.0-rc1 release. Among that last minute work is now recognizing Stephen Rothwell’s contributions to creating and maintaining Linux-Next over the past eighteen years.

Stephen Rothwell stepped down in mid-January from maintaining Linux-Next. He still plans to be around the Linux kernel community but a less grueling role than creating and maintaining Linux-Next since 2008.