01What happened

The story, straight

Linux 7.2 has officially removed the strncpy API from the kernel, capping a six-year effort that produced approximately 362 commits. The strncpy() function, used to copy up to a specified number of bytes, had been a persistent source of bugs due to its counter-intuitive behavior around NUL termination and performance issues from redundant zero-filling. The merge on Friday, June 20, 2026, eliminated the last per-CPU-architecture strncpy implementation from the kernel, according to Phoronix.

linux 7.2 just nuked strncpy from the kernel entirely — six years and 362 patches later, it's finally gone. the function was a bug magnet because of how it handles NUL termination (badly) and its habit of zero-filling memory for no reason (slowly). the final merge landed friday. no more strncpy anywhere in the kernel, including per-architecture implementations.

02Spread timeline

Where it actually started

~2020Origin
Effort begins to eliminate strncpy usage across the kernel codebase.kernel devs start the long slog of replacing strncpy call sites
source
Jun 20, 2026, 10:22 AM EDT
Michael Larabel reports Linux 7.2 has fully eliminated the strncpy API after approximately 362 commits.phoronix reports strncpy is officially dead in linux 7.2 — 362 patches total
source

03Source receipts

Every claim, linked

04What's solid, what isn't

What's solid and what isn't

Confirmed
  • Linux 7.2 has eliminated the strncpy API from the kernel.
  • The removal required approximately 362 commits over six years.
  • strncpy was a persistent source of bugs due to counter-intuitive NUL termination semantics and redundant zero-filling.

05Why it matters

The editorial take

strncpy was deprecated for years but lingered because removing it required touching every architecture's code and replacing hundreds of call sites without breaking anything. The six-year timeline underscores how even well-understood technical debt in foundational software takes enormous coordinated effort to retire. It's a rare clean-slate moment for one of the most widely-deployed pieces of software on Earth.

this is the kind of cleanup nobody notices until it's done. strncpy has been causing subtle bugs in kernel code for over a decade — wrong string lengths, silent memory corruption, the works. killing it required hundreds of patches across every architecture linux supports. if your server runs linux (it does), this matters.