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Ubuntu

Canonical Announces General Availability of Ubuntu Pro, Free for Up to 5 PCs (9to5linux.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the LTS dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Linux: Ubuntu maker Canonical announced Thursday the general availability of its Ubuntu Pro comprehensive subscription for Ubuntu users who want to expand the security updates and compliance of their systems.

First released in a beta version in October 2022 with free subscriptions for personal and small-scale commercial use on up to 5 machines, Ubuntu Pro is only available for Ubuntu LTS (Long-Term Support) releases, starting with Ubuntu 16.04, and promises up to 10 years of security updates, as well as access to exclusive tools. These include Ansible, Apache Tomcat, Apache Zookeeper, Docker, Drupal, Nagios, Node.js, phpMyAdmin, Puppet, PowerDNS, Python 2, Redis, Rust, WordPress, ROS, and many others.

The Ubuntu Pro subscription promises patches for critical CVEs in less than 24 hours and expands the optional technical support to an additional 23,000 open-source packages and toolchains beyond the main operating system, not just for Ubuntu's main software repository....

Canonical says that if you need Ubuntu Pro for more than five PCs, you will have to purchase a paid plan, which is currently priced at $25 USD per year for workstations or $500 USD per year for servers with a 30-day free trial. Official Ubuntu Community members get free support for up to 50 machines.
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Canonical Announces General Availability of Ubuntu Pro, Free for Up to 5 PCs More

Canonical Announces General Availability of Ubuntu Pro, Free for Up to 5 PCs

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  • Features?? (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Saturday January 28, 2023 @01:43PM (#63247051)

    How is Python 2 - which reached its End of Life on 1 Jan 2020 - a feature? It's a gaping security hole and a means of enabling those who'd rather continue shipping insecure projects with unsupported dependencies rather than move on.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • 1. It's 3.11 not 11.
        2. In fact, it's just 3.7 which is going going to be supported until end of Jun 2023. However, porting from 3.7 to >3.7 is usually a piece of cake.
        3. Python 3.x is not a "fad technology". It's never intented to be from the day of its inception.
        4. It's 2023. A company with an old project like that would have advance deprecation notice + 3 years to migrate. Grow up.
        5. If you really need an old version of Python, you can easily do it yourself with virtual environments without paying anyo

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by raynet ( 51803 )

          But they said they will fix CVEs in 24 hours, so these should apply to Python 2 also?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Improv ( 2467 )

        The world needs to move on from Python 2. They had a ridiculous amount of time to do so. Anyone offering any support for it is doing tech a disservice. There was even an effort to get as many module maintainers onboard with ditching py2 as possible by a certain date.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It really depends.

    • The beauty of Open Source is that you are not entirely beholden to upstream. Just because the Python org isn't maintaining something any more doesn't mean you can't choose to, or can't choose to pay someone else to do it for you. Of course there is a lot to be said for keeping up to date, but this is exactly the sort of choice that Open Source licences are designed to allow.
    • Because there's so much legacy code running on Python 2, and Python 3 is anything but source compatible with Python 2.

    • Also, how much more do I need to pay to not get Puppet?

  • * YMMV

    I'm wondering who writes the marketing BS for these guys.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Possibly it means: Within 24h of upstream releasing a fix. :P

      • That would be my guess as well. It sounds silly, but man sometimes OS venders drag their fee on those.... I can see someone paying for it. It seems like a reasonable cost for those that need it. I just wish I didn't need to run Ubuntu to get access to that ;p

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by SeaFox ( 739806 )

          ...man sometimes OS venders drag their fee on those.... I can see someone paying for it.

          A Freudian Slip if I ever saw one.

  • They can certainly stick their "Pro" Linux up their bottom holes.

  • than even 5 years of patches.

    But I'm a noob, so what do I know.

  • compliance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Saturday January 28, 2023 @02:03PM (#63247093)

    $500 is a bargain if you need to meet Compliance goals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lsllll ( 830002 )
      $500/server/year is a bargain? You must work in a very small shop.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        If you have only one server that processes customers' payment credentials or other sensitive personal data, that server may be the only one that needs specialized support for compliance.

      • For the couple of places I need it, yes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        Is it per-image or per hardware server (running dozens of VMs)? I suspect the latter, and it probably makes sense for many/most organizations that need it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lsllll ( 830002 )
          Why would you think it's per hardware server? I'd think it's per VM. Here's their pricing info. [ubuntu.com] It says "N.B.: Price is per machine per year", but that's pretty vague. Further down it has another support product that's priced per VM.

  • When did core server components like Tomcat and WordPress become "exclusive tools"? They're free open-source software, which have been in the Ubuntu repos for years now.

    It sounds like they're trying to find a way to make people pay for previously free features by adding a "Pro" adjective to it.

    • It sounds like they're trying to find a way to make people pay for previously free features by adding a "Pro" adjective to it.

      It may be a winning strategy. A lot of PHBs feel better about using something if they're paying for it.

      At the very least, if something goes wrong, they can deflect blame and point their finger at an external vendor. (Never mind that the terms of service probably absolve the vendor of all responsibility for any problems. The deflection is the important part.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      When did core server components like Tomcat and WordPress become "exclusive tools"? They're free open-source software, which have been in the Ubuntu repos for years now.

      It sounds like they're trying to find a way to make people pay for previously free features by adding a "Pro" adjective to it.

      The problem is, Ubuntu LTS has typically a 5 year lifespan - basically enough to get you through the next LTS release and midway through the one following it. So if you're using 16.04, you had support until 2021, so y

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      You're paying for support, not the application.

  • I bought a $10,000 Linux license from SCO in 2002. Shouldn't I get this for free?

  • Oh, that is the same Ubuntu Pro that has been pushing annoying ads when running apt from the command line?

    LTS gets you 5 year support. If you want to keep running older versions beyond that, that is what ESM is for. However, for my needs, there is always a newer PHP version and such for the applications I run (Drupal, and Backdrop CMS), so ESM is not of any use.

    The culprit for that push ad is this file:

    /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf

    Do this to disable that annoyance ...

    cp /dev/null /etc/apt/apt.c

  • There's nothing "pro" there.

  • Linux used to be the alternative to corporate computing. We would no longer be slaves to our computer vendors. Remember that?

    Now Redhat controls where Linux is going - whether the users like it or not. And Redhat is owned by IBM. IBM used to dominate computing. Microsoft learned all their dirty tricks from IBM. Nobody wanted systemd, but we had it shoved down our throats anyway.

    Just when Linux was getting great, it becomes another Microsoft. Now Ubuntu is another corporate vendor. It always starts out innoc

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 28, 2023 @04:48PM (#63247401)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • "The availability of corporate support subscriptions doesn't mean you have to take them."

        Not yet. Besides, there is more to it than having to pay. Systemd is being forced on us. Debian did not want systemd, but they were afraid that systemd would be the standard (because Redhat had that kind of power) so Debian thought they would have to support it.

        Now Linux is effectively controlled by an even more powerful corporation.

        I expect to see applications, and desktop environments, that won't work without the late

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ebunga ( 95613 )

          And then the systemd guy went to work for Microsoft. Big shock there. Destroy linux, head back to the mothership.

    • Yeah, I still remember when Ubuntu's marketing was all about being Linux for everyone. Now it's the shitty company which forces ads into your terminal.

  • Eh? Exclusive F/OSS tools? (Score:3, Funny)

    by beowulf01 ( 843871 ) on Saturday January 28, 2023 @03:42PM (#63247283)

    I think I'll stick with Slackare, thank you very much.

  • add 2 million lines of code for "enterprise" linux, add several bloated ways of package management. I haven't looked at it for years, so I'm sure I missed a whole lot of bloat. Then say it's free for less than 5 boxes. Wow. When can I start paying?
  • We all know how well paywalling security goes, I think we should ask Elastic.co what their experience has been with requiring a license to get even basic security.

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/16/storehub_data_leak/
    https://www.zdnet.com/article/elasticsearch-server-exposed-the-personal-data-of-over-57-million-us-citizens/
    https://www.techrepublic.com/article/thousands-of-unprotected-elasticsearch-databases-are-being-ransomed/
    https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/12k-misconfigured-elasticsearch-buckets-exto
  • This makes Windows Server Standard edition seem cheap $500 for up to 16 core that is a one time fee. It also makes Windows 11 Pro worth it, I can get that license, if I have to pay for it around a one time fee of $99.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Do you have any idea what the Ubuntu Pro offering actually is? It's access to certain security patches in an expedited fashion (24 hours) - it is not a "license" for the OS.

  • For the uninitiated on vendor-supported Linux what's the difference like this and RedHat? I assume they're similar and both competitors to each other. Is this right?

    • Potentially, Ubuntu supports many more packages than Red Hat. Red Hat itself is small in terms of packages and bundled applications - and Red Hat don't necessarily support EPEL packages coming ultimately from Fedora.

      If you absolutely positively have to have something supported for up to 10 years, and incorporate FIPS / PCI credit card processing / needs to work for US Government or similar or (insert $$$ generating vital commercial thing that requires heavyweight regulation here), then Red Hat and IBM might

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