My wife works in privacy for a big corporation and it is hard, complicated and demanding work and is far from glamourous and these folks are volunteers so I would imaging it was burnout more than anything else. There were only three people on the team and I am sure they were inundated with compliance concerns, especially from the EU.
I understand burnout! But it still doesn't track with the full team walking away at the same time.
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I agree sound more like a major disagreement over something.
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I haven't posted in this thread since December and I said I wouldn't until I thought I should,now I should.
It's been nothing but crickets from anyone involved with Ubuntu MATE about anything to do with it.
Is some miracle going to happen with 26.04 and it becomes an LTS like with 24.04 in the eleventh hour? Is ubuntu MATE even going to continue at all?
Those two questions need to be addressed by somebody involved in the project but in reality it should be addressed by @Wimpy as he's the project lead.
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I've already given my reaction and thoughts, but I've not seen anything new.
Whilst I missed the start of the last flavor sync meeting (12 Jan 2026) as I was late, I do recall lots of talk about lightdm and various problems with that DM and the various alternatives for flavors of it in the current resolute cycle etc.
The notes for that last meeting can be read here which largely just repeat details already known
but coming up sooner is the next noble ISO release, ie. 24.04.4
where I've not seen a response there yet either (confirming involvement with release; 5 flavors have confirmed thus far); ie. The Ubuntu-release January 2026 Archive by date but January is often a month where people take their annual leave, and thus responses can be slow.
One other item in that flavor sync meeting may be of interest to users here, but my knowledge is incomplete & its not as important as what this discussion topic is about anyway.
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... and there is no reply in that chain related to UbuntuMATE ... (yet ???)
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Kind of noticed that myself.
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See…why are some ‘obscure’ distributions show in these publications when ours never gets talked about ? An abandoned kid ? What makes a ‘distro’ vs ‘just another desktop’ ??
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How unpleasant would such a graphic be if all flavors or spins were included...
Ubuntu has numerous flavors as seen with Ubuntu flavors | Ubuntu so you'd have ten as well as just Ubuntu [Desktop] if shown, Fedora likewise has lots of spins as seen at Fedora Spins | The Fedora Project , Linux Mint have two products each offering desktop choice etc...
To me a Ubuntu-MATE system is a Ubuntu system anyway; the flavor detail isn't significant, but I'm also aware my view isn't held by all.
That a distro or desktop isn't talked about doesn't really worry me anyway; if it works, is used & appreciated by its users, and its maintained by a team that aren't overworked/overloaded or abused, and enjoy what they do; I'm happy.
Long ago I used to like the shiny or new too, but I've matured I guess, and now prefer the reliability and basic functionality more; and prefer the DE/WM to stay out the way so I can get what I need to do done.
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I’ve been keeping an eye on this thread and it does seem unfortunate that not one word has been provided by a member of the Ubuntu MATE development team.
It is really disappointing.
I have decided to move on to openSUSE Tumbleweed but I enjoy keeping tabs with this wonderful group (and out of interest, how things are developing with this). For me, I have realised the traditional desktop is the most important thing rather than GTK3, and I have found a good home in the LXQt desktop.
To be honest, though, I don’t stray far from the MATE (GNOME 2) workflow. This is my desktop (if anyone wants some inspiration):
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Are the desktop icons locked into a rigid formation or can you move them to arbitrary positions?
That was one of my dealbreakers for fallback mode in Gnome. The fact it’s been neglected over a decade also seals for me the utter disregard they have for anyone using the desktop outside their narrow vision.
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Penguin
If you right click on your desktop
you should have a menu where appears the following options with a checkbox:
Keep aligned (or not)
Lock icons position (or unlock)
Is it what you refer to ?
W
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I was asking the user who had made themselves a work-alike if this worked for them. I mentioned Gnome fallback mode as an example and why I was asking the question.
I don’t have this issue in Mate desktop which handles it without issue.
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@bornagainpenguin In LXQt you have the option to have icons stick to their positions or not in the “Desktop Preferences” category.
The day after I made that theme, I changed it to what I have now. It was fun to see / show that I could make a theme in LXQt that resembles old Ubuntu and MATE. However, kvantum and openbox have some fun themes of their own. I still use MATE themes for theming my GTK applications.
I tried GNOME Flashback before and didn’t prefer it. I actually like getting out of a GTK desktop altogether, as I find Qt easier to theme with kvantum, obconf, and the LXQt standard settings. A desktop themed to my liking is very important to me. 
As an aside, I never expected when I created this topic for it to gain so much traction. It is genuinely amazing how many people care about Ubuntu MATE among users and community members to come here and show their support (or frustration from the lack of response from the dev team).
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