This kind of argument is hypocritical: You want to use newer versions of the Linux kernel yourself (otherwise you could just stick to whatever builds with your

This kind of argument is hypocritical: You want to use newer versions of the Linux kernel yourself (otherwise you could just stick to whatever builds with your toolchain!), but say that the Linux kernel must not use newer versions of things. The GCC version requirement is 5.1 (which is 7 years old). Before that, it was 4.9, 4.8, 4.6 and 3.2. It has never been 4.7. Use of newer versions of C than C89 which provides solutions to actual issues is perfectly fine. C11 was picked because it does not require an increase in minimum GCC version to use it, making your entire argument pointless. The Linux kernel is already pretty lenient, as many alternatives have their a compiler on the tree and target only that.