Shuttleworth: Unity shell will be default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (ars technica)

The devil is in the details. The FSF makes a solid legal binding statement about _not_ relicensing under proprietary terms that contributors can rely on. The FSF can't just decide to sell proprietary version of the code you assign copyright to them under their standard assignment agreement...or they would be in breach.

Canonical makes no such legally binding promise-back. The details of the contributor agreement matter...and will continue to matter. Canonical's contributor agreement makes zero effort to provide unpaid external contributors that their interest are protected.

I sincerely hope that when Rick Spencer (Director of the Ubuntu Engineering Team) says:
"Contributions - This is possibly the most important part. We need to step up our responsiveness to existing core contributors and new contributors."
http://theravingrick.blogspot.com/2010/10/this-is-it.html

That needs to include a change in Canonical's policy with regard to external contributors to actually mean anything at all.