Canonical is extending its support for Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) releases to 15 years, up from the current lifecycle window of 12.
All Ubuntu LTS releases receive 5 years of standard updates, critical fixes and security patches. A further 5 years of security coverage is available by enabling Ubuntu Pro, which businesses pay for but home users can use for free on up to 5 machines.
Last year Canonical announced the Legacy Add-On for Ubuntu Pro, an opt-in — and paid — extra that gives businesses, enterprises and hardware-dependent industries an additional 2 years of security coverage to their plans – for a price.
Now, the support period for the Legacy add-on is expanding to 5 years.
The change is available for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) from today, making Ubuntu 14.04 the longest-lived LTS to day, supported for a full 15 years since its release. Other Ubuntu LTS releases become eligible for the legacy add-on 10 years after release.
Ubuntu’s 15-year lifecycle
Why the change? Canonical cite “the positive reception and growing interest in longer lifecycle coverage” as reason for it deciding to “extend the Legacy add-on to 5 years” and open a 15-year security maintenance and support window.
It adds that “in highly regulated or hardware-dependent industries, upgrades threaten to disrupt tightly controlled security and compliance” and that the complexities in upgrading critical productions systems can make ongoing support a ‘more sensible option’.
The additional support isn’t just about refusal to upgrade, but breathing room: customers get more time to plan, fund and manage transitions and ensure they meet any ongoing compliance requirements – Ubuntu is run in places where “risk it” isn’t permitted.
A breakdown of the new support lifecycle for Ubuntu long-term support releases:
- Standard support: 5 years
- ESM via Ubuntu Pro: +5 Years
- Legacy Add-on for Ubuntu Pro: +5 years
- Maximum support period: 15 years
On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above there’s nothing to yet as the Legacy add-on is only available to after the first 10 years of updates has elapsed.
The Legacy add-on is priced at a 50% premium compared to the standard Ubuntu Pro. Canonical ask those interesting in using it to contact the Canonical Sales team or reach out to their account manager.
Can regular/home users enable the Legacy Add-on for free? AIUI, no. While none of the support documents mention home users, they all mention business customers and the fact the Legacy Add-on has to be enabled via the sales team.