According to Linus Torvalds, things are starting calming down for the development cycle of Linux kernel 4.14, which will be the next long-term support (LTS) release, and while today’s RC4 milestone is bigger than a Release Candidate should be at this stage, it’s still fairly normal, with the exception of a large watchdog merge. If things are going well with the next Release Candidate, which should be out by the end of the week, Linus Torvalds is confident that Linux kernel 4.14 LTS will launch early November, on the 5th. However, if the RC5 snapshot turns out to be bigger than expected, we’re looking at mid-November as the final release date.