History probably says I'm being naive, but I feel like I don't hate this possibility (hear me out!).
Personally, I'd always choose to use a distribution with open source userland packages and utils, but if closed source alternatives exist and conform to the same specifications (i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish") then I don't mind if a company has closed sourced tech, especially if it'll help there business case, potentially boosting funding for open source linux projects.
Maybe that's all naive, I guess we'll find out if ubuntu really do go for more and more closed source options.
I understand the optimism, but after being burned by what Microsoft did to the Linux community for the last 20+ years, I'll just distance myself more from Ubuntu ecosystem.
When you put Snaps, Juju, uutils, etc. as a list, it all smells like a path to lockdown, not dissimilar to what RedHat did with their "unbranded" patches recently (IBM being IBM, which was unsurprising).
Also, remembering how Canonical worked together with Microsoft on some projects like WSL, which felt like "Surrender servers to Linux, and save the Windows desktop by allowing Linux run as a slave inside a VM" type of deal, I do not trust them a bit.
So, Linux is maturing, but it'll also bring a couple of very big cracks through ecosystem, and it'll be noisy and painful. Personally, I'm on Debian for the last 20+ years, and not planning to move anywhere for now.
I understand that there needs to be an economy, but money is not more important than destroying what we're standing on. Let it be physical like our planet, or virtual like the free software and the culture we built around it.
i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish"
This only ever happens when the party trying to EEE is fighting a losing battle. If they have the upper hand, they will always get to the extend and extinguish part. Do we think movements for user freedom have the upper hand right now?
Personally, I'd always choose to use a distribution with open source userland packages and utils, but if closed source alternatives exist and conform to the same specifications (i.e. we get "embrace" without the "extend and extinguish") then I don't mind if a company has closed sourced tech, especially if it'll help there business case, potentially boosting funding for open source linux projects.
Maybe that's all naive, I guess we'll find out if ubuntu really do go for more and more closed source options.