Distribution support: how long is long enough?

Distribution support: how long is long enough?

1) There is a point which may be being missed. The notice posted by Red Hat indicates the end of support for (at least) Sparc & Alpha systems.

2) There is a difference between bugfix support & vulnerability support. Personally I think vendors have a responsibility to issue patches for critical vulnerabilities (those which could result in a system being rooted, converted into a spam relay or warez host etc) for a lot longer than 14 months.

Naturally there has to be a cutoff point somewhere, and I do appreciate that there is a world of difference between the end of support from an individual linux distributor and the end of support for linux. But I would hope that Red Hat could set a positive example by promising support for critical vulnerabilities for at least a couple of years beyond their recently announced policy.