Admittedly, the name clashes, but there is nothing to worry about. And it is that, a few moments ago, Canonical has presented Ubuntu Professional, which are new Ubuntu Premium images with extended security, LivePatch for the kernel and other special functions. But the most important and the first thing we have to say is that no, it is not a desktop operating system with premium features.
What Canonical has presented today are the new images for Amazon Web Services (AWS). They are available through AWS Marketplace and cover the last three LTS versions of the system of the company that Mark Shuttleworth runs, or what is the same, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. New premium images allow businesses to purchase extended maintenance, Security coverage and critical compliance features simply by selecting and running an image on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), all without any contract.
An Ubuntu Pro is presented, but it is not a desktop system to use
The new Ubuntu Pro images include all optimizations in the standard Ubuntu Amazon Machine Images (Amazon AMI) images, which Canonical publishes in all AWS regions, plus key security and compliance subscriptions automatically enabled. Customers can purchase Ubuntu Pro directly through AWS for a streamlined procurement process, allowing faster access to these commercial features offered by Canonical.
The prominent features of Ubuntu Pro are:
- 10 years of package updates and security maintenance.
- Kernel Livepatch, which enables continuous security patches and increased uptime and availability by allowing kernel security updates to be applied without rebooting.
- Custom FIPS and Common Criteria EAL compliant components for use in environments under compliance regimes such as FedRAMP, PCI, HIPAA, and ISO.
- Patch coverage for Ubuntu infrastructure and application repositories, spanning hundreds of open source workloads, including Apache Kafka, MongoDB, Node.js, RabbitMQ, Redis, and more.
- Fleet-wide systems management with Landscape, including the ability to selectively view, filter, and apply updates.
- Integration with AWS security and compliance features, including AWS Security Hub, AWS CloudTrail, and more, available starting Q2020 XNUMX.
So relax: Canonical is not thinking of doing like Mozilla and is not releasing an improved desktop version for those who want to pay for it. Of course, the news is interesting for companies.
Uffffff, I already saw a paid Ubuntu. Actually, if we think about it, as long as they keep versions for the general public without lowering their quality, I think they would be within their right to do so. Greetings.