May not be able to easily replatform the application running on top of the 5-10yr server or VM.

LTS also only covers core OS components with security updates, not the 30k+ packages available in the repo...

torben-friis an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah I can see a niche situation where it's helpful, it's just surprising to me that it's a common enough case to make it a business line.

	▲	sverhagen an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Someone may run into some issues upgrading their one server, and decide to power through it. Enterprises create a project plan, have meetings, get QA involved, identify risks, mitigate them, need sign off from the security team, not just on the new Ubuntu version, but they may talk themselves into re-certifying the entire bla-di-blah. For them it makes economic sense (in the short term) to just pay for the support plan that keeps them "compliant" and comfortable on the current version. And this, among other things, is why I like the agency that small companies should be able to offer you.
	▲	abtinf 9 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I've been in the room more than once where this conversation has happened: IT guy: We must upgrade our shockingly ancient [database\|OS\|whatever]. The long term support patching costs are $X thousand and we are out of compliance with corporate security policy and they are threatening to deny our exception. Exec: How much does the new license cost? IT guy: $Xk + $1. Exec: Is corporate security going to pay for it? IT guy: They don't usually do tha... Exec: No. IT guy: Bu...but... Exec: One more word out of you. Just one more word. Fucking try me.

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stackskipton an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it. Also, most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic.

All applications need maintenance. Either you do it at application level to keep on top of its dependencies or you do it at OS/3rd party level. Either way, someone wants to get paid.

	▲	esseph an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it. Yes, that is the entire point of what I said. > most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic It depends on if it's an in-house app or managed and built by a 3rd party (may void contract). Also depends on the risk of life/monetary loss if something goes sideways.