How many LTSs? (was Re: Why 6.06.1 ?)

[Adam Conrad]

Felipe Figueiredo wrote:
> 
> I was just wondering. Will every version since Dapper be LTS? It wil be 
> amazing the ammount of space they wil all occupy in servers and mirrors a 
> couple years from now. 

No, definitely not.  Edgy will only be supported for 18 months, and it's
expected that the next release or two after Edgy will also be 18-month
supported releases, as we work our way up to a point where we think we
can release another solid, stable release that was can support for 3/5
years, and then reset the clock with yet another round of sketchy and
fun changes after that.

While the number of in-between releases isn't set in stone, nor the
timeframes, you can see it as something like this:

Ubuntu birth
    |
    - Warty (pretty broken, 18 months support)
    |
    - Hoary (getting better, still hammering out ideas, 18 months)
    |
    - Breezy (pretty dang good, 18 months support)
    |
    - Dapper (Polish it all up, 3/5 years support)
    \
     \
      - Edgy (Break everything again, 18 months support)
      |
      - Edgy+1 (Still broken, improving, 18 months support)
      |
      - Edgy+2 (Probably all works, lacks some polish, 18 months)
      |
      - Edgy+3 ("Just Right", another LTS, 3/5 years support)

During these cycles, we recommend that corporations and people who need
stable (ie: unchanging) networks use the LTS releases, while the
enthusiasts who like to play with the latest bling are encouraged to use
the "slightly less stable, but with many shiny new features" interim
releases.

Of course, anyone's free to use any release, and we are supporting the
interim releases for 18 months, which is more than enough for some
corporations (but not nearly enough for others).  This is just the
general idea surrounding how we plan to make all this go.

... Adam