Reply to post:

I strongly suspect they'll play the "license us" game they apparently played with Mint- or similar.

I'd be looking to improve something like Devuan at this point, if it were me. Canonical wants to play it that way, they're more than welcome to take their ball and go home. It's not like we're incapable of accomplishing this on our own (hey, wait....isn't that largely what they're doing?).