Canonical has introduced a free tier to Ubuntu Pro which is aimed at personal use and small-scale deployments.
Ubuntu Pro subscription (formerly known as Ubuntu Advantage) was originally offered to enterprises for providing them with extended security maintenance updates to Ubuntu LTS releases for an extra 5 years of updates.
The free tier has been made available in public beta.
Ubuntu Pro for Personal and Data Centers
Currently available as a beta release, the free tier of Ubuntu Pro can be used by individual users or small-scale data centers for a maximum number of five machines.
With this launch, CEO of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth said:
Since we first launched Ubuntu LTS, with five years free security coverage for the main OS, our enterprise customers have asked us to cover more and more of the wider open-source landscape under private commercial agreements. Today, we are excited to offer the benefits of all of that work, free of charge, to anyone in the world, with a free personal Ubuntu Pro subscription
The main advantage of Ubuntu Pro over the standard distribution, are the constant security patches.
This is an incredibly good news for users who want stability on their systems without losing out on security updates.
The security maintenance updates are pushed out on a regular basis, especially when a new CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) is found.
Users can take advantage of Livepatch to apply security patches without shutting down their systems. This is included with the Ubuntu Pro subscription.
Small businesses and individuals can also make use of various tools required for compliance management, support for compliance standards such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP and as part of Ubuntu Pro subscription.
So, more incentives to use Ubuntu for individuals and businesses?
With the personal Ubuntu Pro plan small-scale users can now take advantage of the 10-year security coverage (5 Year LTS updates + 5 Year Extended Security Maintenance updates), which includes support for an additional 23,000 packages.
The launch of this free tier of the Ubuntu Pro subscription can help Canonical attract more users to use Ubuntu, which is a good thing for Linux adoption among computer users.
You just have to sign up for a personal Ubuntu Pro subscription on their official website.
For more details, check out the official announcement.
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