From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
That's very sad news. Part of the appeal is long term support. Two year is extremely short. That means that even Debian old-stable won't be getting security backported anymore!
Kernel 4.14 and 4.19 are still supported right now upstream, which seems like an extreme maintenance burden. For Debian they might need to release an update to the next longterm release somewhere during their stable release (like Ubuntu already does with HWE) or suggest people use the backported update on oldstable.
The parties that want or need this kind of long term support are companies for the most part, which could very well crowdfund the personell to carry out these backports.The issue is not the absence of maintainers, it is the absence of awareness for crucial foundations by which these commercial entities live of.
I was already surprised by the amount of LTS kernel series. There's currently six of them! I wondered how this is sustainable and it seems the answer is that it just isn't.
I had no idea LTS could go up to six years... that's crazy.