Long-term support ( Long term support, LTS , often Extended-support release, ESR ) is part of the software life cycle, which means that a stable release will be maintained for a long time and will be considered a standard version for distribution. The term is usually applied to open source software .
Short term support is the opposite term that separates software release. Short-term support has a relatively shorter life cycle and may include features that cannot be added to the LTS due to their possible instability.
Description
At LTS, the principle of design reliability is important. LTS extends the period of software maintenance , also changing the type of patches and the frequency of their release, as the goals are to reduce risks , cost and the number of breakdowns of deployment periods. However, this does not necessarily mean technical support.
At the beginning of the LTS period, the developer is forced to freeze the release of new features, while releasing bug fixes and closing vulnerabilities . However, stopping the release of new features may cause . A lead programmer can either release patches separately, or do it in the , or as service packs . At the end of the term, the product either reaches the , or receives more support, often only in the form of patches covering critical vulnerabilities.
Examples
- Mozilla Firefox has ESR releases that are updated once a year [1] .
- The Linux kernel has an LTS period of 2 years, but older LTS releases are supported for 6 years (for example, version 3.16) [2] .
- Java has eight years of support since release 11 [3] .
- Windows 10 has an LTSC branch that has been supported for 10 years, although it is released every 2-3 years.
- Ubuntu every 2 years releases a branch of LTS, which is supported for another 5 years (for 18.04 - 10 years) [4] [5] .
Notes
- ↑ Firefox Extended Support Release for Your Organization, Business, Enterprise . Mozilla Date of treatment December 12, 2018.
- ↑ The Linux Kernel Archives - Releases . www.kernel.org . Date of treatment December 12, 2018.
- ↑ Krill, Paul . Java JDK 11: All the new features now available , . Archived on September 25, 2018. Date of treatment December 12, 2018.
- ↑ Ubuntu release cycle | Ubuntu www.ubuntu.com . Date of treatment December 12, 2018.
- ↑ Ubuntu 18.04 support time increased to 10 years , OpenNET (November 15, 2018). Date of treatment December 12, 2018.