From Fedora Project Wiki
Fedora 16 features the new 3.0 kernel. In spite of the dramatic number change, there are no dramatic feature changes. Even Linus says you shouldn't care about it:
I decided to just bite the bullet, and call the next version 3.0. It will get released close enough to the 20-year mark, which is excuse enough for me, although honestly, the real reason is just that I can no longer comfortably count as high as 40.