With the forthcoming release of Mandrake Linux 9.1, we are forced to consider the product lifetime of existing products. Because every update released by MandrakeSoft involves extensive testing and QA, we feel that we are better able to provide support for, and deliver timely support of, our products by discontinuing support for “legacy” distributions.
With the release of Mandrake Linux 9.1, we will put in place a cycle that customers can easily anticipate. MandrakeSoft will provide 12 months of “desktop” updates for distributions, and 18 months of “base” updates for distributions. This means that applications such as window managers, desktop environments, browsers, etc. will have a 12 month package update life, while applications such as the kernel, Apache, and other “base” components will have a support life of 18 months. At certain times, MandrakeSoft may choose to extend updates support for certain versions of Mandrake Linux.