A new kernel-version policy for Ubuntu
The Canonical Kernel Team has https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kernel-version-selection-for-ubuntu-releases/47007
a new policy regarding the version of the kernel that will ship with each
Ubuntu release; the result will generally be the shipping of newer
releases.
To provide users with the absolute latest in features and hardware
support, Ubuntu will now ship the absolute latest available version
of the upstream Linux kernel at the specified Ubuntu release freeze
date, even if upstream is still in Release Candidate (RC) status.
The post goes on to acknowledge that "there are issues with this
approach"; there are a lot of policy details that will apply depending
on just how raw the shipped kernel is.
https://lwn.net/Articles/985043/