The date for this was April 2nd. I checked twice to see if it was April 1st…
[…]Another significant change in this release is that it was pointed out that there were error messages in Linux suggesting users to update x86 CPU microcode. Since such microcode is non-Free Software, such messages don’t belong in GNU Linux-libre. We now have patterns to detect and clean up this sort of message. A number of them were introduced recently, relying on microcode changes to mitigate Spectre and Meltdown problems, but there might be others that go farther back. I haven’t yet made my mind on whether to go back, check and possibly respin such earlier releases.[…]
Finally, to celebrate Easter on this date, I couldn’t help mentioning in this release announcement the Easter Eggs I put in. Let me know if you enjoy the surprises.[…]
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNU-Linux-Libre-4.16-Released
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2018-04/msg00002.html
Firmware Security 