GIP Package Build Cessation for EOL Distribution Releases Xenial, Bionic, Stretch and Buster

[Mark Grant]

This concerns only those running on any of Xenial, Bionic, Stretch or 
Buster and consuming Debian packages hosted in repositories at LaunchPad 
or openSUSE Build Services (OBS).

As per Debian releases [1]:-
Stretch has been EOL since July 2022
Buster goes EOL June 2024

As per Ubuntu releases [2]:-
Xenial has been EOL since April 2021
Bionic has been EOL since June 2023

It is my intention to discontinue building packages for these 
distribution releases at the end of 2024. I do not intend to remove the 
repositories so extant packages will continue to be available but never 
updated. (Meaning that apt will continue to work). Having said that, the 
build farms themselves, LaunchPad and OBS, _may_ institute policies at 
some time to delete obsolete EOL repositories, so this cannot be guaranteed.

Further to this I shall also institute my usual policy regarding EOL 
releases and I shall cease building GIP packages immediately upon a 
distribution release going EOL.

Regards,
Mark

[1] <https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases>
[2] <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases>