Well, the big change that the devs are now working on is the joints-axes merge. This has been in the background for years, but has finally made it.
In the next version of LinuxCNC "Axes" XYZABCUVW will be completely separate concepts from "Joints" (ie, motors).
A typical lathe, for example, will have X = joint 0 and Z = joint 1. No dummy Y-joints as is now required.
So, an XYYZ router could have X = 0, Y1 = 1, Y2 = 2, Z = 3. Or any other combination. The system won't care which motor moves which joints. This should be a huge improvement for systems like robots and gantries where there is not a 1:1 correspondence between cartesian coordinates and actuator motors.
So, in LinuxCNC 2.8 your machine would have joints 0,1,2,3,4 and axes XYZABCW. (I imagine that you do not have an actual W-axis actuator?)