Support for standard term releases of .NET 9.0 now extends for 24 months as announced by .NET.
Microsoft has announced changes to the support policy for its .NET and .NET Core platforms, extending the support period for Short-Term Support (STS) releases. The company now considers both Active Support and Maintenance Support as part of its support for .NET and .NET Core. Active Support, which focuses on improving features and reducing security risks, will continue to be offered alongside Maintenance Support, which focuses solely on reducing security risks during the last six months of the support period for STS and Long-Term Support (LTS) releases. The support period for LTS releases remains unchanged. However, the support period for STS releases has been extended to 24 months, a 12-month increase from the previous period. This change aims to address issues arising from Out-of-Band (OOB) releases, where a used OOB release might have a dependency on a newer STS release. The longer support period for STS releases also intends to encourage users to consider STS releases in the future, even outside of Official Out-of-Box (OOB) releases. Examples of OOB releases mentioned include .NET Aspire, Microsoft.Extensions.AI, and the C# Dev Kit. The next .NET LTS release after .NET 7 LTS (November 2022) is .NET 8, released in November 2023, with its End of Support expected in November 2026. The subsequent release, .NET 9, scheduled for November 2024, is a STS version supported for two years until November 2026. The End of Support for .NET 9.0 is now scheduled for November 10, 2026. The planned .NET 10.0 for November 2025 will remain in support for three years as planned. This ensures that both the LTS and STS releases have the same End-of-Support date, eliminating the issue of a shorter support period for packages due to the STS release falling out of support six months before the LTS release. It's worth noting that once the End of Life or End of Support for a .NET release has occurred, it will no longer receive any fixes, updates, or technical online support. This change in support policy for .NET STS releases is due to the rapid development and frequent new features in OOB releases. In summary, Microsoft has extended the support period for .NET STS releases to 24 months to better support the rapid development and frequent new features in OOB releases. This change aims to ensure a consistent support period for both LTS and STS releases and encourages the use of STS releases in the development ecosystem.
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