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Diversifying Ubuntu is all great - more hype and more bling.

Not so good is that the number of bugs delivered with an edition of ubuntu increases for every release. Heron is infested. If nothing is done with this sloppiness (a matter of priority I presume), Ubuntu will become a liability to the Linux community. One of the great sellingpoint for Linux is that it just works. That is NOT the case with Ubuntu and I am concerned that this may rub off on other distros as well. After all - many of the big ones are somewhat forced into Ubuntu's development cycle. Wishful thinking perhaps, but the Ubuntu quality really needs attention.

For the sake of good order:
I'm a Heron user - without any Msoft products on any device.

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TBH I thought that 8.04 was a very successful release - Wubi, lots of media hype, the ubuntu website had twice as many visitors as for the previous release (alexa.com), and the only complaints really were about sound, but that was minor.

I can't wait until someone starts shipping a device with the UNR or UME or whatever preinstalled... they both look so neat.

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This could be a step in the wrong direction - the Ubuntu promise states that all versions of Ubuntu will be free, however this one will not. It may be an 'acceptable' violation, but still a violation of one of Ubuntu's core principals.

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Ubuntu UNR simply enables more users the freedom of installing more free non-networking/networking software on their mobile devices.
Ubuntu UNR is not constraining the users to only install non-free/proprietary software on the mobile devices.

The new added-value item the phone/mobile device providers are selling here is the ability for more non-networked/networked customization of your mobile device providing that the UNR mobile device users pay the monthly wireless networking fee of course. The device costs more, but the network service price will remain the same, if not go down as the number of users go up. This definitely is A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

To add perspective, in the not-so-distant past the cell-phone providers:
-would install proprietary non-networking applications on your cell-phone for a one-shot fee. This was not user freedom.
-would install proprietary networking applications on your cell-phone for an added monthly-fee. This was not user freedom.
-would permit the user to install do-it-yourself Java J2ME networking applications on your phone for an added wireless data monthly-fee. Nothing has changed here. One still needs to pay for the wireless data networking fee. This was user freedom, but limited to the spectrum of the available J2ME application repository. As we all know the Linux application repository is much bigger than what is available for J2ME or for Microsoft Windows for that matter. This is the Linux strength being put on display for the whole world to see and finally understand.

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As mentioned above, this could be a step towards the light or toward darkness. Ubuntu's market has been growing by leaps and bounds and that in turn means more pressure to improve. Reign in the vast number of bugs that have crept in, make some movement back towards simplicity, stay "upstream" by avoiding proprietary technologies. Take some needed steps back towards Ubuntu's project goal of humanity to others fits better with Ubuntu's base's ( Debian) goals than with Redmond. So to keep everything on one CD, reduce complexity, and avoid poison licensing and bad technology, the remix needs to pare out mono-tainted dependencies.

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