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Canonical Preps Security Lifeboat, Yells: Ubuntu 12.04 Hold-Outs, Get In (theregister.co.uk)
Gavin Clarke, writing for The Register: Canonical is extending the deadline for security updates for paying users of its five-year-old Ubuntu 12.04 LTS -- a first. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will become the first Long Term Support release of Canonical's Linux to get Extended Security Maintenance (ESM). There are six LTS editions. All others have been end-of-lifed -- and given no security reprieve. LTS editions of Ubuntu Linux are released every two years. Desktop support runs for three years and the server edition receives security patches and updates for a period of five years. Security updates for 12.04 were scheduled to run out on April 28, 2017 but that now won't happen for those on Canonical's Ubuntu Advantage programme. They'll now receive important security fixes for the kernel and "most essential" userspace packages on their servers running 12.04. In what's shaping up to be Canonical's Windows XP moment over at Microsoft, the Linux spinner rolled out the lifeline because customers are clinging to 12.04.
After all this time, there should have been enough eyeballs scouring the open source code for vulnerabilities that it should be impregnable. I cannot understand how something like this could happen with open source being constantly audited by all its users for bugs before they compile and install.
"In what's shaping up to be Canonical's Windows XP moment"
In another 5-10 years, this may be true. Mainstream support for XP lasted a decade, and some versions were supported for 13 years. 5 years support for an OS is, as The Orange Asshole would say, "Sad!".
I don't respond to AC's.
is there something "special" about 12.04? With 16.04 ubuntu got systemd-infested, but was there something after 12.04 that customers don't like? Or simply "we don't upgrade, period"?