Maintainer of the production Linux kernel Andrew Morton claims that the kernel is getting buggier, and that he is considering putting in place a "bug fix-only kernel cycle". During LinuxTag (a large annual technical conference and business expo held in Wiesbaden, Germany) Morton voiced his concerns that the kernel is getting buggier over time.
He says developers are failing to address long-standing issues, such as bugs in support for older hardware. He adds that companies employing kernel hackers are not motivated to fix such bugs, despite the hurdles they present to wider Linux adoption.
Morton admits that he has yet to prove this claim statistically, but maintains that he has noticed that he is getting more emails with bug reports.
"A little action item I've given myself is to confirm that this increasing defect rate is really happening. If it is, we need to do something about it." he said.