[Article author here]

I think you're getting your timelines and versions muddled up.

The article is not about GNOME. It is about GNOME 3.

GNOME 1.0 was in 1999.

GNOME 2 was 2002.

Ubuntu was 2004 and launched with GNOME 2 and nothing else.

Microsoft's campaign of legal threats began around 2006 and intensified around 2007.

Unity was released 2010 and first became default in 2011.

GNOME 3 was released 2011.