Canonical Extends Ubuntu LTS Support To 12 Years For Ubuntu Pro Customers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Canonical Extends Ubuntu LTS Support To 12 Years For Ubuntu Pro Customers

Ubuntu Long-Term Support (LTS) releases have been support for 10 years of updates by Canonical while now that has been extended to 12 years but only for Ubuntu Pro customers going for their legacy support add-on. This 12 year support is extended retroactively going back to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-LTS-Pro-12-Years

[Setif]

Does it include those with free "Ubuntu Pro"?

[Malsabku]

Does it include those with free "Ubuntu Pro"?

Ya, those are included in the 12 years support.

[andre30correia]

for people who like unity untill 2028 they can have it supported

[szymon_g]

oh, that's nice of them

[sophisticles]

How exactly does this work, "Pro" customers have an account that they have to log into before they can connect to an update server?

And why on God's green earth would anyone want to keep using an old distro with fixes back-ported to it?

I guess there might be someone that has a custom app that relies on a given library version.

[Daktyl198]

How exactly does this work, "Pro" customers have an account that they have to log into before they can connect to an update server?

And why on God's green earth would anyone want to keep using an old distro with fixes back-ported to it?

I guess there might be someone that has a custom app that relies on a given library version.

In enterprise, a stable system is the goal. Not the newest software. If the software you need works on a machine running Ubuntu 16.04 and nothing ever crashes, you want to LEAVE IT THERE as long as you possibly can. Upgrading WILL cause minor issues, and minor issues are downtime and money lost. I've seen a machine (not connected to the internet) running Windows 98 and who knows what Java version to maintain a geriatric finance application that the company SWORE they needed for whatever reason. It worked for them.

[skeevy420]

How exactly does this work, "Pro" customers have an account that they have to log into before they can connect to an update server?

And why on God's green earth would anyone want to keep using an old distro with fixes back-ported to it?

I guess there might be someone that has a custom app that relies on a given library version.

Windows XP came out in 2001 and was receiving updates until 2019 because so many things depended on it. It's scary how many things like ATMs and POS systems ran XP and now run 7 instead of some Linux distribution or Windows 10/11. I wouldn't be too surprised if XP machines are still in existence. If it ain't broke don't fix it has its Pros and Cons. That's especially true when "ain't broke" means different things to IT and the CFO.

This is the distribution, operating system, version of what you were wondering about the Linux kernel the other day:

When i read these types of things i can't help but think that they need to adopt a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" policy, after they get done fixing all the broken things of course.

At this point the kernel development should be nothing more than adding new drivers to support new hardware; no more trying to add some new "features" that end up breaking something they don't discover for years, not let's see if we can tweak this or clean up the code, that should be taken care of before the commit is made, just a new piece of hardware is out, let's add support for it.

This seems to be a mentality with a lot of open source projects, their maintainers can never call the job done, they keep wanting to add stuff but in many cases they can't even fix the stuff they already have.

If you run a chain store, like fast food, gas stations, retail outlets, etc, then it's a lot easier for your software to just keep on keeping on than it is to install an upgraded distribution with new kernels that may or may not support your existing hardware. Every few weeks we read about something or other that the kernel developers depreciate. That means that upgrading Old Linux to New Linux isn't a guarantee that your older hardware will keep on working. Keeping the older software running as secure as possible until you have the time or money to upgrade the hardware in all your stores is a much more appealing option than having to upgrade your stores on Ubuntu's LTS time tables. It also prevents a lot of e waste.

[woddy]

How exactly does this work, "Pro" customers have an account that they have to log into before they can connect to an update server?

And why on God's green earth would anyone want to keep using an old distro with fixes back-ported to it?

I guess there might be someone that has a custom app that relies on a given library version.

Yes, but this needs to change.
I make no sense and it is counterproductive to continue using a distribution that is years old and full of band-aids.
It should be understood that security fixes are only applied when possible, not always.

[S.Pam]

I think this is a problem of the Linux ecosystem. While it is true some software that worked on WinXP doesn't work on 7 or newer, most do.

IMHO, the Linux bases systems needs to be able to handle multiple libraries, have stable and compatible apis so that not everything breaks just because a small update/security fix to a library your app uses.