Starting with the release of Blender 2.8 from last July, the Blender Foundation has put the 3D production suite onto a three-month release cycle. It has worked for 2.81 and 2.82, so now they are considering a new Blender release schedule by adding LTS versions into the mix. They are also intending to bump the version code much more rapidly.
With Blender’s current release schedule, there should be a new version every February, May, August, and November… give or take. Blender would like to see the May release be supported for two years. The blog post doesn’t say what will happen to the other three releases in a year, but I am guessing that they will not overlap in support. This is very similar to the release schedule for Unity, which releases four minor versions per year, and the last one (around the springtime) is supported for two years.
Blender states that LTS is partially a response to corporations that do not allow employees to install software on their workstations. While I don’t see much practical difference if a patch needs to be installed (whether it’s 2.83.2 or 2.84 still requires upgrading the workstation) it apparently works out better for them.
Lastly: Blender is getting a version bump. Blender 2.90 is expected in August, which will lead into 2.93 for May 2021. After that? It will be Blender 3.0 in August 2021. Ton mentions that this would end the Blender 2.x lifecycle after 21 years. They then expect that Blender 4.0 will land two Augusts later (in 2023). Of course, these are just numbers, and features haven’t been assigned to these milestones yet.
Also, it is just a proposal. They could change their mind.
