Ubuntu"s public schedule for releasing the software lists 1 June as the date for the new version, code-named "Dapper Drake", to be made public. The milestone release will be officially supported by the project for a longer period than previous versions, and will be billed as suitable for enterprise use.
Dapper Drake will be supported for three years for the desktop version and five years for servers, compared to 18 months for the current 5.10 "Breezy Badger" version.
The code release will come after the development process was extended by six weeks in order to improve the reliability of the software. Normally Ubuntu pushes out an official version every six months.
"In some senses Dapper is a first for us, in that it is the first "enterprise-quality" release of Ubuntu, for which we plan to offer support for a very long time," Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth said in an e-mail in March to the developer community.