Comment 3 for bug 377005

Ubuntu was founded together with Canonical, they have always been (and I hope they always will be) intertwined and interdependent. There are thousands of projects and hundreds of distributions, which have various degrees of involvement between themselves and companies. Contributors already align themselves with the projects that reflect the things they are most interested in.

Personally, I think the company/project interface and interaction makes the landscape interesting. We're all trying to figure out the future of software, and perhaps the future of the software business at the same time.

I understand the passion behind this bug report, but I don't think it can be addressed. The people who make up the Ubuntu community are entirely free to devote their energy to whatever path they think will serve their interests best - and that has always been the case. I suspect most people in this community are drawn here precisely because of the interdependency between project and company. And those who don't may well be drawn to something which flows as a direct consequence of that.

There are several distributions which make a point of having no corporate backer. The people who want that, specifically, are probably already there, happily doing good work. People who want something else are wherever they think they can find that, happily doing good work. Some people may change their mind and move in either direction. But Ubuntu and Canonical were born together, with a shared mission. If that's interesting to you, then participate in Ubuntu. If it's not, then don't.