osOpinion: Is Linux Vendors’ Short Support Good Enough?

“How long is long enough? Linux vendors are coming under fire
for short product support life cycles. Is the criticism warranted,
or are critics failing to see the big picture? The truth might lie
somewhere in the middle.

“Red Hat touched off quite a debate over support when it
announced its errata policy in mid-December. This wasn’t the first
time the company had set the end of life for a specific version of
Red Hat Linux. However, it was the first time it had set a uniform
policy. That policy drew a lot of attention–and not a little
criticism–for the Linux vendor.

“In fact, most major Linux vendors currently have end-of-life
policies for their distributions, and they tend to be much shorter
than those for commercial Unix offerings or Microsoft Windows
versions. With Red Hat, the support period can be as short as 12
months from the time of release, although the period is much longer
for the company’s Advanced Server distribution, which is (not
surprisingly) more expensive and geared toward corporations and
larger organizations…”

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