It’s a simple question - is MATE dead or not? Yes or no. Can @Wimpy weigh in here? Thanks.
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I'm not Wimpy but MATE is alive and well.
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Thank you. I hope you’re right.
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I'm one of the MATE upstream maintainers. There are not many of us left, but we're active and devoted to continue keeping MATE alive, update dependencies, add new features, etc.
We welcome contributions from the community and love it when folks test patches, suggest fixes for bugs, new feature ideas, or just plain hang out in GitHub. It all matters and makes the project worthwhile.
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No. They just released UM 25.10 like 5 seconds ago and if you look at the mate desktop github (MATE Desktop · GitHub) you'll see a lot of upstream development (much of it to prepare for Wayland) towards MATE 1.29.
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Yeah, but on my Ubuntu MATE I’m still on mate 1.26.1… when is MATE 1.29 coming to our machines?
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In your view, is it normal to expect a release, such as UbuntuMATE, to attempt the integration of a component release which does not even exist ??? If you had bothered to check, there is NO 1.29 MATE release:
You need to be realistic with your expectations. Everyone is in the process of migrating to Wayland, and the MATE Team is no different. That complex an "adaptation" takes a huge amount of time to both plan and complete! So much so, that both Debian and Ubuntu coordinate their efforts (and resources) to make it all happen, as show here:
Besides, once the new version of the MATE Desktop is ready, the process of integrating that into UbuntuMATE doesn't happen overnight! That also takes time, so, given that it is, for the majority, volunteer work, you might want to give them a break?
Better yet, if the pace of development isn't going as fast as you would like, maybe consider helping it along by making a substantial donation via their page! That way, those developers don't need to worry about doing "real" work to feed themselves, so they can dedicate their attention to the MATE/UbuntuMATE work on a contractor basis!
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Ubuntu is based on Debian and hence won't have the latest versions of software because it prioritises stability (even non-LTS releases).
MATE 1.28 (the latest release) is available on Fedora along with the obvious rolling release distros like Arch, EndeavourOS and so on.
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I gave UM money two or three times, even though I've been using the OS since 2016. After reading your post stating that donations would allow devs to devote time to UM instead of regular work to feed themselves, I feel that I should give some money since it's been awhile. I did buy a polo shirt and hoodie, as well as a coffee mug, too. I was wondering if $10 would help then out?
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Since I am a retired senior, and not one of those developpers, I commend you for your intentions, but I am not the one to whom the questions should be addressed, and certainly not the one who can give you anything like an appropriate response. 
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With regards to donations, I don't get any of that money. I think that's all used for infrastructure and hosting costs.
In the past Martin would give some money to devs for certain features (I myself got some cash for a few things years ago), but not sure of the whereabouts of all that these days.
I'm privileged to have a good job that encourages me to do this in whatever time I have (as long as it doesn't get in the way of my "real" work), so I do this out of love for the project.
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Thank you, your “free” work is greatly appreciated.
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Hopefully, somehow, Compiz will come along.
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It will, as long as X11 sessions are still supported. How long that is remains to be seen!
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Many THANK YOUS for all the work you did, while keep on doing it, to this wonderful project that is known to be leaving quite a mark over the course of Humanity.
Slow and steady wins the race.
#UMFTW
PS: Was the OP trolling?
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