What is TYPO3 Extended Long Term Support?

Most software comes with support, one way or another.
You might have heard about Microsoft dropping support for Windows XP or Adobe dropping support for Acrobat, their free PDF reading tool. Dropping support simply means there will be no more updates for that specific version of the software product.

But what exactly does “no more updates” mean? Often times people tend to misinterpret this as them not getting new features anymore. While this is true, this also means there will be no more security fixes for the software.

With attacks via the web being all over the news these days this is something important to be aware of.

But support for a software does not end all of a sudden (well, to some people it does… much like new year’s eve being surprisingly early), normally there are fixed time frames for how long a particular piece of software is being supported.

You should plan ahead with these in mind when evaluating software you intend to use as we covered in an earlier article. Read more in our article 'Why you have to consider support periods when choosing software'.

Most open source software does not come with any fixed support times. So people using open source have to depend on the goodwill of the author(s) of that software to get access to security fixes or compatibility updates.

Ubuntu Linux was one of the first Open Source vendors to come up with the idea of offering fixed and, when compared to what was available at the time, rather long support terms. In 2006 Ubuntu Linux released their first Long-Term-Support (LTS for short) version with the promise to deliver security fixes for up to 5 years.

By doing so, system administrators and user alike could depend on a fixed, reliable time box in which they received security update and bug fixes.

TYPO3 picked up the principle of LTS as one of the first Open Source Content Management Systems in 2011 with the release of version 4.5, giving the same promise with a fixed period of 3 years in which the project would deliver security patches. Along with this came the so-called “platform-promise”, which states the system requirement would not change within the LTS-period.

Updating a website can be a time consuming process. We’ve heard about cases where it took more than 12 months to get all people involved into a planning meeting because they were spread out all over the globe. Or you plan to do a relaunch the next year anyways, so spending budget on updating what you have might be wasted.

For these cases we have created TYPO3’s Extended Long-Term-Support (ELTS). By subscribing to one of our plans you get all security- and bug fixes as well as an extension to our platform-promise. Plans always work for one year and can be purchased up to two times, giving you a total support period of 5 years.

Find out more about TYPO3 ELTS plans here or, if you have any questions, simply get in touch with us directly.