I bumped into this article this morning. I’m not disabling my ad blocker. It’s not quite a one-click disable with pfBlockerNG. lol
Anyone else read this? Is it accurate?
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The core technical facts in the article are actually accurate but the headline overdramatizes the situation. The author is correct that Ubuntu MATE 26.04 LTS missed its release window due to a severe shortage of active maintainers after the lead developer stepped down, leaving community build fixes unreviewed and the project without enough manpower to hit the LTS release milestones. Because the current 25.10 release hits End of Life (EOL) in July 2026, running it unpatched after that date poses a legitimate security risk for production environments. However, the upgrade path itself isn’t broken since the flavor still shares the official Ubuntu repositories so affected users wouldn’t need a fresh reinstall because they can simply do a standard release upgrade to the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS base and pull the desktop package using
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt install update-manager-core -y && sudo do-release-upgrade -d && sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop -y
To keep the existing MATE environment and layouts completely intact. So while the maintainer shortage created a real release bottleneck, it’s a straightforward migration path rather than an infrastructure crisis and definitely not worth changing those pfBlockerNG rules over.
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Thanks for the summary Marcel.
Just like James, I also avoid this kind of sites for the same reason.
Your summary was very welcome at this point. 
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The fact that it starts with “The Hidden Truth About…” already makes me sceptical about the type of article. I think it’s rather well known now that there were not enough maintainers to adequately and timely produce Ubuntu MATE 26.04, which is not dramatic at all—just an unfortunate but understandable situation.
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(I beg forgiveness, in advance, for trying to explain the events symbolically.)
Personally, it all boils down to …
… the race is underway, with lead runner holding the baton …
… all of a sudden, a cloud drops onto the track, preventing visibility of where the runners are at …
… unknown to all the fans, that runner has stopped running and has walked off the field, placed the baton on the bench …
… didn’t give a heads up to anyone on his team that the baton was “abandoned” …
… the great unknown, from being obscured, causes some fans to start probing though the cloud cover …
… with visibility still blocked, fans call out from the stands, trying to get the runner’s attention, hoping that he might raise a flag so people could see it poking above the cloud cover, but moving around the track, but there is no “tracer” available to follow …
… after a while, more fans start using megaphones, trying to approach via different angles (channels), voicing their outcries …
… somehow, that runner hears about the outcry and comes back momentarily to the track …
… to broadcast, “Hey, I’m walking away, if someone wants to pick up the baton, let me know.”, then walks off the field again …
… waiting on the bench for someone to approach him to pick up the baton !!!
Not cool!
What should have happened …
When the runner started sensing that he no longer had the energy or the willingness to “finish the race”, he should have
- told someone what he was contemplating of doing before actually doing it,
- should have handed off the baton while the race was still on,
- allowed his team to finish!
Instead, the team did not finish the race! The judges walked away before the team could reorganize to finish!
Again, not cool. Things should have transpired so so differently.
The worst part is that, regarless of messaging that has been put out since, and activities going on, there is nothing being shared that inspires any confidence that they have put the wheels back on the car for it to roll again, and that is the sadest part.
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This reminds me of a movie that we can watch with our wives when we get our noses away from our computers: “The Ugly Truth” 
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This is pure speculation, but I wanted to weigh in. Could it be that a new job sometimes requires you, as part of its terms, to shut down any activity they deem a “conflict of interest”?
20 years ago I was put in a similar position when I ran an online property that grew very popular, after which I was hired by a company that raised the “conflict of interest” fork in the road… 
or else.
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I don’t believe so. The interest had just ‘waned’, with numerous hints being given (over some time) at various meetings/discussions etc well before 2026 (Ubuntu MATE 25.10 was allowed to release despite missing a required milestone).
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Noted. Makes sense. I guess there are always differing views in cases like this. But 12 years is a long time that he maintained things. I would tend to focus on the positives in a situation like that.
We can only speculate, but we can never really know all the sacrifices, cost, and time that goes on behind the scenes. So regardless, it’s full respect and kudos to Wimpress on over a decade of successfully managing MATE. Ubuntu could not even accomplish that with millions of dollars and a team of people with the Unity DE. 
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Of course it’s always better to notify others when it seems you might not be able to handle things, but I just want to weigh in here, having been in a situation where my health would not permit going on as I would but I desperately tried to cling on (also feeling embarrassed).
Sometimes our minds block ourselves from realising things can’t go on the way they were. Perhaps as a way of self-protection, or to keep up an appearance—I think many people feel ashamed to admit they can no longer handle something, unfortunately. And then, going on like that, at some point, your body just gives in. Everything’s too much and you have to recover.
This does not necessarily come with an announcement from that person. I agree with you that it would have been great in an ideal situation, but usually, these things are more complicated like that—which is why I’m hesitant to point any fingers.
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That’s a fact.
When he announced on the Ubuntu Discourse that he was stepping down (after the fact) I pretty much said that and my post was removed and I got a “warning”. And after the fact he pretty much stated that himself.
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