The FAQ's on the Archives includes:

Why are some longterm versions supported longer than others?
The "projected EOL" dates are not set in stone. Each new longterm kernel usually starts with only a 2-year projected EOL that can be extended further if there is enough interest from the industry at large to help support it for a longer period of time.

Now it seems that future long term versions won't have the original EOL deadline extended. However, this could lead to some short term anomalies as Version 5.15 and 6.1 have 3 years left to run and it is unlikely that any change would be imposed retrospectively and so Version 5.15 might still be being maintained beyond the next LTS release.

According to the FAQs:

Longterm kernels are picked based on various factors major new features, popular commercial distribution needs, device manufacturer demand, maintainer workload and availability, etc. You can roughly estimate when the new longterm version will become available based on how much time has elapsed since the last longterm version was chosen.

The existing pattern for long-term releases would lead us to expect a new one in December 2023. We are already at Version 6.5 as the Stable release and there's a rumor that Version 7.1 could be the next LTS - although this conflicts with the information that:

"The major version number is incremented when the number after the dot starts looking "too big." There is literally no other reason."

Beyond 2026 the effect of the decision to reduce support from 6 years to 2 is that there should be no more than three LTS releases to maintain. The main reason suggested for this change is to reduce the burden on the maintainers. Given that the Archives lists Greg Kroah-Hartman and Sasha Levin as the only maintainers of all six of the LTS versions, it seems high time for the change to be introduced.

More Information

The Linux Kernel Archives

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