On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Troy Dawson wrote:

> Tim Edwards wrote:
>> On 27/01/10 17:23, Troy Dawson wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> The Scientific Linux development team has put out a roadmap for the
>>> future of Scientific Linux 4.
>>>
>>> http://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/roadmap
>>>
>>> Scientific Linux 4 is going to follow the same type of roadmap that we
>>> followed for Scientific Linux 3.
>>>
>>> SL 4.9 will be a "legacy" release.  It will be supported until
>>> the time that RedHat no longer supports RHEL 4, which is February 2012.
>>> This release will only get minimal support, security updates only.  Red
>>> Hat calles this "Production 3 Life Cycle Phase" which is
>>>
>>>   "During Production 3, at a minimum, qualified security errata of
>>>    important or critical impact and selected mission critical bug fixes
>>>    may be released independent of minor releases.
>>>
>>>    No new functionality, new hardware enablement or updated installation
>>>    images are planned for release in Production 3 life cycle phase.
>>>    There are no minor releases planned during this phase."
>>>
>>> https://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/
>>>
>>> SL 4.0-4.8 will be obsoleted.  Currently that is set to October 10,
>>> 2010.  That date is flexible.  We want to give users at least 6 months
>>> to update to SL 4.9.  So if SL 4.9 takes too long to be released, we
>>> will move the October date back.
>>>
>>> Summary:
>>> SL 4.0-4.8 : Obsolete in October 2010
>>> SL 4.9 : Minimal support (security only) until February 2012
>>>
>>> Thank You
>>> Scientific Linux Development Team
>>
>> Just wondering what you mean by SL 4.0-4.8 being 'obsolete'? Is it the
>> same as saying that SL4.0-4.7 are currently 'obsolete'?
>>
>>
>> Tim Edwards
>
> I guess I wasn't clear on that part.  I think I was assuming that people
> were around when we obsoleted SL 301-308, which many people aren't.
>
> They will no longer get any security and/or bug fix updates.
> We will no longer test errata against these releases.
> We will move them into the "obsoletes" area.  This way if people still
> want to use them they still can, but your average or beginning SL user
> won't be confused thinking they are still fully supported.  And mirrors
> will not feel obligated to have to mirror them.
>
> Troy
>

The idea is that you should upgrade to SL 4.9 which will get security 
errata updates.

-connie sieh