I am concerned with the current status of Ubuntu, not because of the tension on the community or the new software being put out. I am concerned because I feel my time and contributions might go to waste and fall on deaf ears. As leader of a LoCo, how do I know if the work I am putting in is even going to matter in two months when 13.04 comes out? Is my work still relevant because it has nothing to do with a cell phone, nothing to do with a display server, and nothing that in any way is a direct profit source for the Canonical.

I just spent the past two days at the online UDS, and though I feel this allowed for greater community participation I am blatantly aware that the items the community are allowed to work on are not the same that we could work on in 2008 when I first joined the Ubuntu community. We have no say in any core decisions, and I find this unexceptionable. This is not community, this is hierarchical class system with an almost direct juxtaposition to the Ubuntu I used to know. We are made to be people who are used and abused and uninformed of the inner workings of the actual Ubuntu system until every other Ubuntu user finds out. How can I go from working at UDS on how to spread Ubuntu when I am just as unaware as any other Ubuntu user out there as to what this Ubuntu is that I have volunteered to spread. Am I still valued?