> I want a strong mainstream OS alternative to Windows - one that is popular enough and gets support from all major software vendors for apps. If Ubuntu got at least as popular as Mac OS, it would be amazing, and I don't really care what they have to do to get there.

I can understand that Canonical wants to become a "mainstream alternative to Windows" because this means money for them. But why do you care how many buggy Windows or OSX clones are out there if you can just pay few bucks and get the real thing?