[Bug 1245870] Re: Ubuntu 13.10 should be upgraded to LTS status

[Dimitri John Ledkov]

For the record:

* Mir development has little relationship with LTS releases. It will
still be developed, but it hasn't been default yet, and it's not planned
to have it as default for 14.04 either. Even if it does become default,
it has been carefully planned to transparently fallback to X, when Mir
is not possible. In a similar fashion, how we have automatic fallback
graphics mode, when things go wrong.

* By default on the www.ubuntu.com website we promote Ubuntu LTS release
for download, which has 5 years of support on the Desktop.

* Windows XP expire date has been raised before. That sofware has been
obsolete for a long time. Users of that software, have already been
ignoring the upgrade warnings, thus it's not expected for them to be
upgrade savvy. We are confident that 12.04 LTS is a great improvement to
Windows XP users, which will be supported for 3 years after XP EOL.
Furthermore, some of the hardware typically supported by Windows XP
machines (i386, non-PAE) are only supported with 12.04 LTS. Do note that
13.10 defaults to 64-bit images (amd64).

* Technically, it might be non-trivial to change support life cycle of a
given release, since support status of packages is published in the
archive metadata, which is GPG signed and is frozen at release and not
changed. (as in "raring" suit never changes, "raring-*" do change
throughout the support lifetime of a realease to provide security and
bugfix updates).

For similar reasons, we also rejected the idea to shifting 14.04 LTS
release dates, based around Windows XP expiry dates.

Also note, this is not the first time "Windows XP" was declared EOL, the
dates have been pushed back before by Microsoft and it may happen again.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to ubuntu-meta in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1245870

Title:
  Ubuntu 13.10 should be upgraded to LTS status

Status in “ubuntu-meta” package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  I believe that Ubuntu 13.10 should be upgraded to LTS status.

  Rationale:
  - Mir missed 13.10, and may not be sufficiently mature to put into 14.04LTS, although would be acceptable in a non-LTS release.
  - Windows XP ceases to get support after April 2014. Anyone looking to Ubuntu as an upgrade path currently has three choices:
   -- Install 13.10, which ceases to be supported only shortly after XP[1]
   -- Install 12.04 LTS, which is quite old (but currently the best choice)
   -- Wait until the last minute of XP support to install 14.04LTS, which may or may not work on the XP hardware and prevents any staged migration.

  Upgrading 13.10 to LTS  status would make Ubuntu a viable choice to be
  really pushed out at XP users looking for an upgrade path, and clear
  the way for Mir development to take place without the LTS looming.
  Even if it is too late to "stop" 14.04 being considered LTS, I believe
  that the extra investment required to commit to LTS support for 13.10
  would help make Ubuntu a realistic option for XP refugees, of which
  there are many.

  Note 1: LTS is important for XP refugees because many (most?) of them
  will be supported in the migration by other Ubuntu users, often
  remotely. Getting them onto a stable platform is essential for turning
  them into long term Ubuntu users. 13.10LTS would be perfectly timed
  for XP users needing a migration path. Another opportunity like this
  won't arise for many years.

  [I appreciate that a bug report might not be the best forum for this,
  however I don't see any debate about what seems an obvious move for
  Canonical, and it seemed to me this forum was the best place to reach
  the people best qualified to comment.]

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-meta/+bug/1245870/+subscriptions