Ubuntu 14.04

As I write this, it is the Monday evening before we release Ubuntu 14.04 on Thursday.

As many of you know, Ubuntu 14.04 is our next Long-Term Support (LTS) release. Every two years, we nominate an Ubuntu release as an LTS that is provided with an extended period of support. The rationale for this approach is that many people delivering Ubuntu in the enterprise don't want to update their entire deployment every six months. Updating once every two years is more comfortable, so people use the LTS, which has security updates for a longer period of time.

We tend to take a slightly more conservative approach to these LTS releases and are usually more reluctant to drop large new pieces of technology into the platform. The main reason is not just that we want to assure quality for our users, we also don't want to cause significant headaches for these enterprise deployments when big pieces of the platform change. This is one benefit of releasing every six months – we can drop new pieces of technology into the non-LTS releases, so the IT staff can get to know the changes before the LTS upgrade period comes around.

[...]