I just finished watching Jay’s opinion on this very topic before I read your post. He makes some compelling points: https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=fqfyM7zE6KM

Having worked for many very large corporations in my day, I observe that no “company” can have any more integrity than the leadership in that company and the larger the company, the more leadership there is (boards of directors, shareholders, c-suite execs, etc). The more leadership, the less integrity because there isn’t a single rudder guiding the ship. So, I believe nothing said by any large company because the person saying it is nothing more than the voice for that company at that particular minute and it’s anyone’s guess the machinations going on behind the curtain, which can and will change depending upon profitability and political goals from quarter-to-quarter. It can be no other way in large organizations (including companies, governments, tribes, etc). With smaller companies/projects, the product or service is much more likely to stick with a principal or goal because there’s fewer chefs in the kitchen and the person speaking for the team is more likely to exercise integrity because they can. When I say integrity, my definition in this context is “aligning actions with words.” So my take is there is a risk with hitching your wagon to any distro because larger orgs have more resources but are less likely to exercise transparency but smaller projects may have the transparency but not the resources.

I’ve been using Pop! for a few years and it’s a small company (System76) with obvious goals to grow, which is certainly something to be cautious of because nearly every company loses their original principals when they begin striving for growth over convictions. I’ve been running Fedora in several VM’s and I’m not planning to change that until IBM decides to pee in that project’s bathwater too.