Operation Extinguish
Ubuntu Edge was a flop, rebranded as a ¨success¨. Just like MS claims Win8 is a success.
Ubuntu will soon have its own, proprietary, package system. Meanwhile the rest of the community looks at uniting APT and RPM under a common umbrealla - i.e. working together.
Ubuntu has it´s own (basically) proprietary UI (Unity). Meanwhile the two big guns (KDE and GNOME) continue to improve and the ankle biters (XFCE, MATE, Cinnamon etc) keep them in check.
Ubuntu is getting its own (basically) proprietary display server (Mir). Meanwhile the community is developing Wayland (and Weston). This would be a perfect target for Intel, Nvidia and AMD - but now Canonical is poisoning that well by trying to double dev costs on GNU/Linux.
In short, Canonical is doing everything within its power to fracture and destroy the GNU/Linux community.
MS´s plan must be working our nicely, they have clearly shifted gears into Operation Extinguish and this funding disaster was clearly part of that. This is what happens when you let MS onto your board (just ask Nokia).
Hopefully the greater GNU/Linux community can weather the coming storm.