no Linux distribution is popular
All Linux users: "everyone should be on Linux! Linux is amazing! Yay Linux!"
ubuntu becomes very popular
All Linux users: "everyone should be on Linux! Ehhh... but maybe not that Linux..."
I regard Stallman the way Randall Munroe regards Ayn Rand: "I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'"
As a professional, I love it.
But without canonical and his compromises, my mother wouldn't be able to use it today.
I'm glad I have a solid base, but creating something less radical on top of it will not destroy it.
I've also never tried to discourage anyone from using Ubuntu - but I noticed it's not for me. Apart from a tiny fraction of "this is a little nicer for the desktop user" I am losing a lot versus plain Debian - and I wouldn't that call that idealistic.
On the other hand... maybe there would've been a year of Linux on the desktop if a good part of the distros would've folded and people would've joined forces. Who knows?