More info following from my post on Ubuntu from someone working in the NRSI:

"This next release of Ubuntu (Dapper, 6.04) is to be supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server. The feeling is that Ubuntu has hit a stable point in its development, with little new stuff being added to core packages in the last 6 months. This provides Canonical with a relatively stable distribution with which they can go after certifications with some of the big database people. They already have db2 certification, but they are after Oracle and people like that. One key certification they are going for is LSB 3.0. The reason for only 3 years on the desktop is the feeling that who would want to run a 3 year old desktop distro anyway!

"Unfortunately, graphite [the non-Roman font rendering thingy] wasn't ready in time to get into 6.04 so we will see it in 6.10. But that doesn't stop us producing 6.04 ready packages for people to download, etc.

"I got the lowdown on the relationship between Ubuntu and the OLPC [One laptop per child].
Redhat as a financial partner will be producing the official distro for
OLPC. But the OLPC market is big enough and open enough that there is
nothing to stop users putting other distros on there, including Ubuntu.
Some countries may prefer to use Ubuntu over Redhat for whatever reasons."

tags: fonts Ubuntu OLPC