As the new version of ubuntu slated to be released on October opensourcetips takes a deep look at the Ubuntu release cycle. Ubuntu started it journey on October 26 2004 with the release of Warty Warthog. Ubuntu is sponsored by the UK based company Canonical Ltd., owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth.

Canonical releases new versions of Ubuntu every six months and supports Ubuntu for eighteen months by providing security fixes, patches to critical bugs and minor updates to programs. LTS (Long Term Support) versions, which are released every two years, are supported for three years on the desktop and five years for servers.

Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon writes in Linux.com "In the Ubuntu world, we release a new version of Ubuntu every six months, and inside each Ubuntu release cycle we cram in a huge amount of work. Through the cycle there is a sync with Debian, a merge of our patches, six alpha releases, a beta, a release candidate and all the feature development, bug fixing and other work that goes into making our favorite Operating System"

"While Canonical employs a large number of developers to work on Ubuntu across seven teams: Kernel, Server, Desktop, Foundations, QA, Community, and Mobile, the larger Ubuntu community play a key role in almost every element of Ubuntu. I just wanted to share some examples of the areas in which the community got involved in the Karmic cycle.

Central to the Ubuntu community are our incredible local user groups, known as Ubuntu LoCo Teams, of which there are over 200. Many of them organised the Ubuntu Global Jam, a weekend of face-to-face events in which people get together to work on bugs, testing, documentation, translations and more."

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