Canonical announced this morning that they will extend the life of the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus versions to 10 years. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS have a ten-year support plan, and Canonical has decided to retrospect 14.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS for ten years, which means that they will now be supported until April 2024 and April 2026, respectively.
These earlier versions of Ubuntu long-term support have been maintained for five years under the Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) provided by Canonical to organizations, and now they provide ten years of support for paying users. The only change today is around 14.04/16.04 LTS, 18.04/20.04 LTS adhere to the ten-year cycle they have already promised.
In an upcoming press release, Canonical attributed the extension of the old version of the LTS to their customers’ better economic benefits in infrastructure upgrades and the growing demand for network security. Canonical’s extended security maintenance period is mainly to provide customers with security updates and outstanding fixes, including real-time patching of security vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel.
