In recent weeks there has been a lot of talk that Ubuntu 14.04 would die on April 30, 2019. There has also been a lot of talk about different security flaws, many in the kernel, which have been corrected. This could be the reason why Canonical to offer longer support for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, so it will exceed the 5 years of support that versions usually have Long Term Support of the operating system that Canonical develops.
Canonical already dropped long ago what a commercial package would offer ESM (Extended Security Maintenance), but in the beginning it was only going to be for companies. Now, Mark Shuttleworth and company assure that this package will reach all Ubuntu 14.04 users, so support for the version released in April 2014 will be extended. This ESM version will be available from April 25. Of course, there is talk that this version will not be free, but we will have to buy it.
Ubuntu 14.04 ESM will not be free
Canonical's Adam Conrad recommends users to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 or Ubuntu 18.04, both LTS versions. I also think that it is the best considering that Ubuntu 14.04 ESM will not receive application updates or enjoy the best news that have been included over the years. If you don't want to use a version that is going to be one year old next month, Ubuntu 16.04 includes cool features, is well polished, and still has two years of official support left.
If, on the other hand, the ESM version of Ubuntu 14.04 is not acquired or updated, users of the version of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will not receive any news, so they will be exposed to security problems in the future, if necessary. Both versions will be unable to update any other type of software that is not for security.
Are you still on Ubuntu 14.04? What will you do next month?
That 'distro' was my favorite by far. . . It took me a lot to adapt to the versions that came later!
And to think that with this distro I started in Gnu / Linux 🙁