Jessie will ship Linux 3.16

The Debian Linux kernel team has discussed and chosen the kernel version
to use as a basis for Debian 8 ‘jessie’.

This will be Linux 3.16, due to be released in early August. Release
candidates for Linux 3.16 are already packaged and available in the
experimental suite.

If you maintain a package that is closely bound to the kernel version –
a kernel module or a userland application that depends on an unstable
API – please ensure that it is compatible with Linux 3.16 prior to the
freeze date (5th November, 2014). Incompatible packages are very likely
to be removed from testing and not included in ‘jessie’.

1. My kernel module package doesn’t build on 3.16 and upstream is not
   interested in supporting this version. What can I do?
   The kernel team might be able to help you with forward-porting, but also try
   Linux Kernel Newbies or the mailing list(s) for the relevant
   kernel subsystem(s).

2. There’s an important new kernel feature that ought to go into jessie,
   but it won’t be in 3.16. Can you still add it?
   Maybe – sometimes this is easy and sometimes it’s too disruptive to
   the rest of the kernel. Please contact the team on the debian-kernel mailing
   list or by opening a wishlist bug.

3. Will Linux 3.16 get long term support from upstream?
   The Linux 3.16-stable branch will not be maintained as a longterm
   branch at kernel.org. However, the Ubuntu kernel team will continue to
   maintain that branch, following the same rules for acceptance and
   review, until around April 2016. Ben Hutchings is planning to continue
   maintenance from then until the end of regular support for ‘jessie’.