The Ubuntu Unity project is currently facing significant challenges due to its primary maintainer, a talented young developer, becoming increasingly occupied with academic commitments. The team is now reaching out to the broader Ubuntu community for assistance.
This plea for help was voiced on the Ubuntu forums earlier this week by team member Maik Adamietz, who acknowledged the difficulties the project is experiencing. The primary architect behind the Unity Remix initiative, Rudra Saraswat, originally launched the project in 2020 at the young age of ten to bring the previously deprecated interface back into the spotlight. Now as a teenager, Saraswat finds himself balancing numerous educational responsibilities, which has hindered his ability to maintain the project effectively.
Adamietz expressed understanding of Saraswat”s situation, stating, “We can”t blame him for that.” However, he emphasized the urgency of the matter, noting, “Unity is broken and needs to be fixed.” The project”s troubles intensified when it missed the scheduled release for Ubuntu 25.10 earlier this month due to the identification of critical bugs that prevented the team from finalizing the ISO image.
Furthermore, Adamietz pointed out that the latest versions of Ubuntu Unity have not undergone thorough human testing, resulting in an accumulation of unresolved issues as the foundational Ubuntu operating system continues to evolve. He added, “These bugs are also present when you upgrade from 25.04 to 25.10 or attempt to install the Unity desktop on another flavor.”
Without immediate intervention, the project risks devolving into what can be described as effectively abandoned software. Unfortunately, Adamietz and other contributors lack the necessary technical skills to sustain the entire distribution. He shared, “I nor Tobiyo Kuujikai, another member of the Unity team, have any technical/developer skills to do this, and we both do not know what it takes to be a maintainer.”
In the same forum thread, Kuujikai echoed the call for help, indicating, “I currently don”t have the skills and time needed to fix the current bugs in Unity.” The Unity team is now actively searching for individuals within the Ubuntu enthusiast community who possess the expertise to restore the project to its former functionality, potentially as it was seen in version 24.04 and prior releases.
Adamietz mentioned the hope that someone could guide them through the maintenance process, allowing them to take over responsibilities in the future. The team is particularly eager to ensure that they do not miss the anticipated release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, slated for April.
Efforts to reach out to Saraswat regarding his future intentions for Unity have yet to yield a response. This situation serves as a poignant reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in open-source projects that rely on a single maintainer, especially when that individual is a young person whose priorities may shift rapidly.
