Back to gnome it goes Thank Heavens, Now Fedora and Ubuntu can duke it out and make the linux desktop a better space.
Wow. I thought at first this was a late April Fools joke. Fascinating.
GNOME is close to being the same interface IMHO, anyway. It's like Unity won over GNOME. I prefer MATE or Cinnamon. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned but I don't want my computer desktop to look my phone.
Wow! Just read about it this morning here (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/05/ubuntu_euthanizes_unity/) and I'm shellshocked! I may be in the definite minority, but I actually like Unity and, other than trying this and that at different times, I have stuck with Unity since it came out. I like the look and feel (with Numix Circle icons and the Paper theme), and I have become pretty proficient with it. Gnome is OK once tarted up with extensions, but the last time I switched to it (in Ubuntu), I was having some strange problems with Thunderbird not being able to send out mail. Coincidence I hope.
What to do now? I do like Plasma, but it gives me strange display problems on one of my iMacs (with a nvidia card), and my wifi cuts out on an older Mac mini running it after prolonged sleep. I suppose I could install Kubuntu to get pure Plasma and see how that works. Or just move to Gnome and use another mail program if that problem persists? The Mate desktop isn't bad and I could go to that, but after Unity it seems dated. (I know that this opinion isn't shared by many of you.) :(
You'll have a year to figure it out since they aren't moving to GNOME until 18.04.
There is some indication that Unity development will continue outside of Canonical (http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2017/04/multiple-developers-come-forward-to.html), even Unity 8. But I'm not holding my breath. I wasn't using any of the more esoteric features of Unity like HUD, and with the use of extensions, Gnome can be set up so that it looks and operates much like Unity. Also, I expect that Canonical will do some tweaking of Gnome in Ubuntu to make more usable as they define it.
Meanwhile, I'm not sitting on my haunches. I already had the Gnome desktop installed on my home and office computers running with the dash to dock extension set to look like the Unity launcher. I used Gnome yesterday in the office and had no issues with Thunderbird this time. It isn't a difficult transition.
It has been ported for the die hards, but with the tiny little market share of linux (non android) based mobile devices. It's hard to see it gaining any traction. Unless the Cathedral and Bazaar holds true and development takes off under a more open development model.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=UBports-Unity-8-Wayland-Talk
Wow! I, too, am floored! I resigned myself to the notion that this was "the Ubuntu flavour" and would just be another alternative. I'm actually kinda sad to see it go - I like diversity and choices, and I tolerate it admirably on my netbook... My laptop, however, quickly got "gnome-session-fallback" to put me back to GNOME 2'ish (frankly, I'm not sure any more whether -fallback or MATE is the closer to GNOME 2 anymore...
Too much monkeying around with UNITY to bend it to the will of the DE(s) on an ongoing basis, perhaps, as they, too, evolve in their own ways?