Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS Delayed Due To Spectre & Meltdown

Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS had been scheduled to ship mid-February as the latest point release for this Long Term Support release, but unfortunately that is not going to happen as planned due to the Canonical kernel developers being overloaded by Spectre and Meltdown mitigation work.

Ubuntu 16.04.4 is now being delayed by an unknown length of time, but they believe it shouldn't be more than "a few weeks" past the original 15 February ship date. They are waiting for the Spectre/Meltdown mitigation work to settle, for ensuring they are shipping qualified patches in this point release. Additionally, they have been busy with that mitigation work that they have neglected other kernel patches that may need to make it into this point release too.

So long story short they are busy but Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS will come in time as confirmed via this mailing list post.. Right now it doesn't appear that the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS ship date in April will be impacted.