I was searching info for 16.04.3 LTS (for Kubuntu & Xubuntu). It was great to find out about the cool features of those Ubuntu distributions.
However, I found something unusual; the EOL date of both is on April 2019, the exact same date as Trusty, not on the official EOL by Canonical, which is on April 2021.
Kubuntu (EOL date: April 2019):
Xubuntu (EOL date: 3 years after release, April 2016 + 3 yrs = April 2019):
Ubuntu (EOL date: April 2021, official date by Canonical):
Can someone tell me why the EOL date of both is sooner than the official Ubuntu one?
Best Answer
The Ubuntu BASE has a 5 year support on ALL releases specified as LTS. The distribution specific software (ie. LXDE desktop, KDE desktop) have a 3 year support -from Canonical-.
Also mind that those 5 years are divided into 2 parts:
The 3 year LTS versions are supposed to start to prepare the newly released LTS (since that one is released every 2 years).