Timing of EOL notices

[Jeremy Bicha]

On 18 May 2012 11:58, Jamie Strandboge <jamie at canonical.com> wrote:
> A specific example: 10.10 was EOLd in early April this year. 10.04 LTS
> users with a backported maverick kernel therefore no longer received
> security updates for this kernel after the EOL announcement (naturally),
> but these users did not have a viable upgrade path to maintain security
> support. They couldn't go to 10.10 (it was just made EOL) and 12.04 LTS
> was not released yet. I suggest the EOL announcement go out on the
> Friday or Monday after release such that there is at least a day of
> overlap. This is still within the spirit of 18 months support, even if
> it is actually off be a few days.

I was surprised that the 10.10 EOL was a few weeks before 12.04 LTS
was released. I'd prefer a regular release be supported until the 3rd
release later is released (so delaying 10.10 EOL to being announced
the same day as 12.04 release or a few days later). It doesn't have to
be exactly 18 months later; 18-19 months is close enough to our
promise.

I don't think telling people that 10.10 is now unsupported so choose
to 1.) Upgrade to 11.04 and then 11.10 and wait a few weeks for 12.04
or 2.) Do the riskier thing by upgrading to 12.04 Beta. If we had
waited a few weeks for the EOL notice, then people could have chosen
the nicer options of either 10.10>11.04>11.10>12.04 LTS or just do a
clean install of 12.04.

Jeremy