[Golden Eagle]

Yes, that is their various forms of “support”, the longest of which is apparently 7 years. Windows 2000 longest form of support is from 2000 to 2010 (~11 years) and Windows XP is 2001 to 2014, or ~13 years. Not really even close.

[N3WBI3]

My position has been rather consistent. 5 to 7 years is a fine life cycle for an operating system but its important to give as much full support and time in sales for a proper migration. If MS had been able to get Vista out in 2004 like they planned we would not be having this conversation because as far as I am concerned two to three years of time *of full support* after that they can burn the last copy of xp and urinate on the ashes.

CentOS provides you with an upgrade path about every 18 months and Full support 5 years (with 7 years of support for everything but hardware drivers). so by the Time CentOS5 is out of support (2014) I will have the options to upgrade to CentOS 6(2008), 7(2010), 8(2011), 9(2012), and maybe 10(2014).