Ubuntu founder Mark shuttleworth has again taken a jab at Red Hat, the world's most successful open source company. In a recent IRC when he was asked about the relationship between Ubuntu and Gnome teams Mark Shuttleworth replied:

We felt blocked by Red Hat on specific parts they control.

Ubuntu spans the whole open source ecosystem. I think it's convenient for Ubuntu's competitors to talk about a split between Ubuntu and GNOME. But I know lots of GNOME developers who don't see things that way at all, they write apps because they want them to be used, and Ubuntu is an amazing conduit for their work to millions of users.

We felt blocked by Red Hat on specific parts they control but we collaborate very well with lots of other GNOME developers and lots of developers take care to make sure their stuff delivers an excellent experience everywhere it's not hard so i don't think it's worth amplifying the idea that there's a big split. I'm very happy to help GNOME developers reach a huge audience. I'm not here to play political games or score points.

This is not academic, this is about people and helping them benefit from free software so, choose which meme you want to spread: the world is a divided place, or the world is a place where you can get things done if you are open to collaboration. The stories people tell, have more to say about those people, than about the people they are talking about ;)