If you want to compile a newly released Linux 6.7 stable kernel on New Year's Eve, then you need to prepare a new plan, because the Linux 6.7 stable version will not be released until another week. Following the cycle trend of Linux 6.7, it usually means that Linux 6.7-rc7 will be released this Sunday (December 24), and then the Linux 6.7 stable version will be released on December 31, unless there are any final problems in the previous week. But Linus Torvalds announced today that he has planned to postpone the release by a week due to the year-end holiday.
The Linux 6.7 release cycle has been going smoothly without any major issues/defects, and Linus Torvalds also pointed out in his weekly release candidate information that everything is progressing normally. But due to Christmas and New Year, he plans to postpone the release by a week, that is, to avoid opening the Linux 6.8 merge window on New Year's Day.
His plan is to release the stable version of Linux 6.7 on January 7, and then open the Linux 6.8 merge window on January 8, just after the holiday, to avoid placing additional burden on kernel maintainers. Torvalds wrote on the mailing list today:
"FYI - my current plan is - rc7 will be done this Saturday (since I'm still following the Finnish custom that Christmas Eve is the big day, so I'll have Sunday off), and then if there's any progress that week - there will be progress even though the network might be offline - I'll do rc8 the following week."
Unless something weird happens, the final version of 6.7 will be released on January 7th, so the merge window for 6.8 will open on January 8th. That's the plan and it doesn't look like there's anything weird that would cause me to delay it further, so there's a good chance the plan will stay in place."
As a result, Linux 6.7 will have an extra week to prepare, and kernel developers will have less pressure to prepare for changes to the Linux 6.8 merge window. In turn, this also means that the stable version of Linux 6.8 may be released around mid-March instead of early March. This could cause problems for some spring Linux distributions planned to ship with Linux 6.8 stable now that their kernel freeze dates are too close or have passed, but we'll see if this ends up affecting any notable distributions. In any case, the features of Linux 6.8 so far have been quite exciting.