Hi, I propose that we remove Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) from the CI matrix and binary package generation systems.
Ubuntu 16.04 stopped being a standard LTS release in April 2021 and is now only supported through Canonical’s Extended Security Maintenance program. I think the end of LTS is a reasonable standard to apply for removing support in Apache CouchDB. If we apply this to Debian / Ubuntu / CentOS I believe we end up with the following expiration dates: Debian 9: 06/2022 Debian 10: ~07/2024 Debian 11: ~08/2026 Ubuntu 18.04: 04/2023 Ubuntu 20.04: 04/2025 CentOS 7: 06/2024 CentOS 8: 12/2021* (Red Hat did a thing with CentOS where it switched from a rebuild of RHEL to being upstream of RHEL, and they accelerated the EOL of CentOS 8 as part of that). I’d like to get in the habit of proactively removing these releases from our build system when they leave LTS rather than waiting around for something to break. Any objections? Adam
