The Linux Kernel LTS Period to Shorten from 6 Years to 2 Years

The Linux Kernel LTS Period to Shorten from 6 Years to 2 Years

The Linux Kernel LTS Period to Shorten from 6 Years to 2 Years

At a recent European open-source summit, Linux kernel developers and the executive editor of “Linux Weekly News,” Jonathan Corbet, discussed the latest developments in the Linux kernel and its future direction.

One significant change on the horizon is the reduction of the Long-Term Support (LTS) period for the Linux kernel from six years to two years.

Currently, the Linux community adheres to the existing end-of-life schedule. Therefore, the six LTS versions already released, namely 6.1, 5.15, 5.10, 5.4, 4.19, and 4.14, follow a six-year support cycle. However, future releases will only have a two-year support period.

Corbet explained that the main reasons for this change are the lack of usage and support. He stated, “Maintaining them for so long doesn’t make sense because people are no longer using them.” Another significant issue is the fatigue faced by Linux code maintainers, who encounter numerous obstacles in their work. On one hand, maintainers need to keep the code up-to-date alongside their daily responsibilities, but maintenance work often goes uncompensated. Most importantly, due to staffing shortages and other issues, the workload for maintainers has been steadily increasing.

Ars Technica, a tech media outlet, believes that a two-year support window seems reasonable for the PC platform. However, for the Android mobile operating system, built on Linux, the situation is less favorable. In 2017, Google developer Iliyan Malchev announced during an Android Linux talk that the LTS period for the Linux kernel would be extended from two to six years. This extension was primarily aimed at supporting Android and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Today, on the PC platform, two years represent the time between kernel updates and is a suitable schedule. However, for embedded devices, considering the development cycles and the entire consumer support window, this “two-year” duration appears insufficient.

As per Google’s previous description, smartphone development takes about two years, and the kernel is locked in the early stages of the engineering process. Therefore, with a two-year LTS period, by the time the phone ships, the LTS kernel will have reached its end of life, resulting in users running an outdated kernel throughout the device’s entire lifecycle.