Some weekend stable kernel updates

Well, if they did not work on the develoment trees, there would be no kernel at all. Having 1-2 stable kernel branches is fine, but If somebody wants to have a long-term stable kernel, they can (surprise!) pay people to do backports.

Being a developer, a subsystem maintainer and a maintainance engineer is three different jobs. Some maintainers also work on community activities such as organizing conferences, or on tasks that are required by their employers (who are agreeing to donate at least part of their employee's time to helping volunteers and developers from other companies, at times including competitors). There's just not enough time for maintainers to do and test backports to five different long-term branches, plus the two currently-active short-term stable branches.