We're planning to release Zorin OS 17.3 later this month. However, there's been a slight change of plan with the kernel version.
We generally make use of Ubuntu's HWE (hardware enablement) kernel versions, which are maintained upstream. This makes sure that the latest security patches are available as quickly as possible, and the kernel version is tested widely to work as well as possible with the rest of the base system to ensure system stability.
After recently contacting the Ubuntu team about kernel updates within the Ubuntu 22.04 release series (which Zorin OS 17 is based on) they mentioned that they won't be upgrading to the Linux 6.11 kernel within this release series. As a result, the kernel in Zorin OS 17 won't get upgraded to a major newer version, but it will continue to get incremental updates and security patches for the 6.8 kernel series until 2027.
We're planning to ship at least version 6.11 of the Linux kernel in Zorin OS 18, which we're aiming to launch in the 2nd half of this year. We just created a new help article that gives more details about our release cadence and plans here: When Will the Next Version of Zorin OS Be Released? - Zorin Help