I think what we’re wrestling with here is “how do we tell users in a way they will understand, that Whonix 17 is still supported on Qubes R4.2 and will be for a while yet, while also strongly encouraging them to move to Qubes R4.3 and Whonix 18 as soon as they reasonably can?” I think we’ve managed to drive home the “really, you should upgrade now if possible” point, but at the expense of making users believe they have no other choice. They do have another choice, if there’s a security vulnerability in Whonix 17 for Qubes it will be fixed even past the usual Whonix 17 EOL date, but we really would like for support requests and similar for Whonix 17 to stop since we aren’t doing any more work to develop it other than security support.
IMO “as soon as possible” is stronger than what we had already, which only makes things worse. Suggested draft that might be clearer:
Whonix 17 End of Security Support and Deprecation Notice - Upgrade Soon
As per Whonix Support Schedule, this post serves as the Whonix version 17 deprecation notice.
Whonix 18 stable has been released for all platforms.
Whonix 17 will be deprecated for non-Qubes platforms on 06 February 2026. For Qubes-Whonix on Qubes R4.2, Whonix 17 will be deprecated on 2026-06-21.
All users, regardless of platform, should strongly consider updating at the earliest possible convenience. After the deprecation date for each platform, security fixes will no longer be created for Whonix 17, and it may become difficult or even impossible to perform an in-place release upgrade to Whonix 18.
This avoids the confusing “platform specific notice”, makes the EOL dates for each platform clear, should get across what their options are, and still give them the firm nudge in the direction of “upgrade sooner rather than later”.