The KDE-branch of the Ubuntu family is all atwitter this week, with the announcement that Kubuntu 8.04 — better known as Hardy Heron — won't be designated as a "Long Term Support" or "LTS" release by the powers-that-be at Canonical.

The decision — and the resulting backlash — centers around the release of KDE 4, currently in beta, and it's proximity to the release of Kubuntu 8.04 in April 2008. Apparently, Canonical is concerned that KDE 4 won't be mature enough — it will only have been in stable release for about three months when Hardy Heron is released — to be included in a version earmarked as "Long Term Support." LTS releases are guaranteed support for three years on the desktop, and five on the server, meaning that any problems that are fixed in future releases would continue to haunt Canonical into 2013.

No word was given on what will be the next LTS release for Kubuntu, but the announcement did reveal that Hardy Heron will ship with the opportunity to use either KDE 3.5 or KDE 4.

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