Seeing as this isn't dying anytime soon I'll jump in.
Freeing them from what, learning? Granted, the average user isn't interested in learning but they would be free to reject the opportunity if they so chose. *That's* freedom.
There is nothing - *nothing* that is stopping anyone from installing whatever they want on Ubuntu. Canonical are doing the *smart* engineering decision and officially supports *one* tool that gets the job done. And the few people that disagree with the tool are more than welcome to hop on the servers graciously hosted by Canonical to download other tools.
I'm shocked that people get their panties in a bunch over this 'give me more choice!' issue since, as stated before, *one* default program that gets the job done has always been an Ubuntu policy.
I had dumped Ubuntu and gone back to Debian, mostly because of Marvelous Mark's autocratic attitude. Just recently decided to try Ubuntu again to see what had changed. After reading the attitude that, at least, some of the devs display here about determining for the user what's best for him/her, I guess I'll settle in with Debian and just lurk on this list.
So what do you want in an OS? A 16-DVD installer of Ubuntu so that everyone will be just so happy that we have every single program ever installed? God forbid we deprive those poor souls of choice. Let's ask if they want auto-fsck enabled, or automount (because some users won't want their USB drives automounted, how uncivilized!).
I'm shocked that people can have this kind of though-process. People just want to use their goddamn computers - even something as simple as 'what search engine would you like to use?' distracts and complicates the computing experience - Just look at Windows. Watch users get so confused when Windows has eight million dialogues asking users what they want to do. There's a delicate balance between KDE's option's-galore-insanity and Gnome's brink-of-stupidity-simplifications. And Ubuntu's currently the only OS that is sane enough to *mostly* see this balance (sadly, they're still pulled back by Gnome's methodical destruction of their frameworks).
FYI, I'm not a Canonical member nor an Ubuntu member, so don't take my words as official.
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