I get where you are coming from. From what I have heard Ubuntu is getting it
too. They sense that they have done a bad job of communicating to users. I
am not sure where this is headed. There was a groundswell of anger over the
button issue.

My opinion is that Ubuntu has a great community and Ubuntu takes it for
granted. Too bad. They have set up projects like Brainstorm to listen to
users, but it appears that they do not act on the suggestions. So people
started posting decisions that bothered them under Launchpad as they would
for a bug in a programme. This has been going on for some time. There is a
feeling out there that there is a disconnect between Canonical and the
Ubuntu community. I am not sure how large it is, but it is growing fast.

In my own case, I switched from Ubuntu to Kubuntu with Intrepid and have not
looked back. I still use GNOME on my netbook, but install Kubuntu and then
GNOME, without Mono. I am involved in several Linux communities and Ubuntu's
is still the best, but I can't say the same for its parent. The global Linux
trend is for less Mono. Some distros have removed it entirely. Fedora,
Ubuntu's biggest competitor, comes without it, although it is still
available in the repositories. I can't see why Ubuntu is swimming against
the current on this one, except that they are being controlled by developers
who are enamoured with it for some reason.

Quite frankly F-spot sucks, but it is being promoted by Ubuntu which has
removed the GIMP for space reasons (which is ironic because Mono uses more
space) and overlooked several better photo managers. The word is that
Banshee will replace Rhythmbox in 10.10. More Mono when there is no need to
go that route. Mono is a very divisive issue in the Linux community. It
comes from MS via Novell and is regarded as a poison pill by many, including
me, for no other reason than allowing MS to continue its FUD campaign
against Linux alleging patent infringement. Mono's various licenses are not
simple to understand (intentionally I think) and MS will only say that
Novell users are free to use it.

So your rant is not alone. There are many grumblers out there who disagree
with decisions that go beyond design, but to the very heart of what free
software should be. Canonical is out of step with many of its own users for
many reasons. I suggest that the heart of the problem is with the leadership
of Canonical. They used to community to enable it to grow and now see that
they are big enough to go it alone. Shuttleworth summed it up when he said
that Ubuntu is not a democracy. That says it all.