...is it's community. They are a resource and a curse, depending upon your viewpoint and attitude. This community will try your effort and find every fault. If you have an ego invested in your project instead of merely time, money, and effort, it will hurt. Among the critics there are seasoned testers and programmers willing to lend a hand.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to the criticism and convert these to bugtrac listings and feature requests. Those allies you find in this community you must unite under your banner to do battle with the laundry list of issues. As any good commander, you must lead, but also listen to these troops. They are your veterans and if you demonstrate that you are listening and heading in one general direction they will help you win the war.

On the other hand, if you do not listen because you are perched on a throne, they will still slay dragons, but under someone else's banner, even their own. Once victorious, they will be the heros and the kings on the throne will be forgotten as their project forks.

Simply put, if canonical listens, they may yet win the day. They have a lot of issues (mostly political) and there still is much work to do even if all the issues Mr. van Gend and others brought up are addressed. If Canonical chooses not to listen and fix these issues, Ubuntu may become a footnote in history as their codebase forks. Within two years there will be a new distro in popular use which many will swear is better than sliced bread, just as Ubuntu was.