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Mark Shuttleworth Reveals Ubuntu 18.04 Will Get a 10-Year Support Lifespan (zdnet.com)
At the OpenStack Summit in Berlin last week, Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth said in a keynote that Ubuntu 18.04 Long Term Support (LTS) support lifespan would be extended from five years to 10 years. "I'm delighted to announce that Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported for a full 10 years," said Shuttleworth, "In part because of the very long time horizons in some of industries like financial services and telecommunications but also from IoT where manufacturing lines for example are being deployed that will be in production for at least a decade." ZDNet reports: Ubuntu 18.04 released in April 2018. While the Ubuntu desktop gets most of the ink, most of Canonical's dollars comes from server and cloud customers. It's for these corporate users Canonical first extended Ubuntu 12.04 security support, then Ubuntu 14.04's support, and now, preemptively, Ubuntu 18.04. In an interview after the keynote, Shuttleworth said Ubuntu 16.04, which is scheduled to reach its end of life in April 2021, will also be given a longer support life span.
When it comes to OpenStack, Shuttleworth promised again to support versions of OpenStack dating back to 2014's IceHouse. Shuttleworth said, "What matters isn't day two, what matters is day 1,500." He also doubled-down on Canonical's promise to easily enable OpenStack customers to migrate from one version of OpenStack to another. Generally speaking, upgrading from one version of OpenStack is like a root canal: Long and painful but necessary. With Canonical OpenStack, you can step up all the way from the oldest supported version to the newest one with no more than a second of downtime.
When it comes to OpenStack, Shuttleworth promised again to support versions of OpenStack dating back to 2014's IceHouse. Shuttleworth said, "What matters isn't day two, what matters is day 1,500." He also doubled-down on Canonical's promise to easily enable OpenStack customers to migrate from one version of OpenStack to another. Generally speaking, upgrading from one version of OpenStack is like a root canal: Long and painful but necessary. With Canonical OpenStack, you can step up all the way from the oldest supported version to the newest one with no more than a second of downtime.
...so that any IoT device makers that use it are required to provide updates to their devices for the same period?
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While I do not use Ubuntu (I use Debian sans systemd-crap), this is good news, as it sets standards for everybody else.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
uh, since $10 is less than what they actually charge, and they picked 10 years based on their actual paying customers' feedback, they are doing exactly what you are saying, minus the whining.
https://www.ubuntu.com/support/plans-and-pricing#ua-support
This is how things have always been in the free world: the users can singularly or collectively decide how much they're willing to offer and under what terms to get someone to do programming work. Thanks to software freedom, anyone with a copy of free software also has the freedom to get someone to improve that program for them, for any definition of "improve". The rest are details to be negotiated in a work contract such as how much to pay, who will do the work, contact points for progress updates, and when the work is due. It doesn't matter how old the software is or if there are newer programs one could use to do the same job. One retains control of their own computer and this extends to groups of people working together as you describe. These are enormous benefits to software freedom (but even that word is too weak to describe freedom)—self-determination and cooperation with one's community are freedoms we rightly cherish. None of this activity rejects commercialization but also doesn't make commercial concerns primary. Proprietary software is radically different: the proprietor is a monopoly. There is no competition thus no negotiating with more amenable parties should one find the price too high or if the proprietor is uncooperative. The proprietor also denies the user the freedom to do any of this work for themselves by themselves.
Digital Citizen
10 years ago I would agree with you, but now with smartphones and "Agile" development processes, users are used to changing interfaces. The interfaces change frequently, and often for no reason. You either have to adapt, or not use your device.
Not only that, Windows recently insisted their users all learn a completely different interface type.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."