I feel like Ubuntu had the opportunity to help the Linux desktop gain more traction. However, they got side tracked from helping to polish existing open source

I feel like Ubuntu had the opportunity to help the Linux desktop gain more traction. However, they got side tracked from helping to polish existing open source projects and started messing about reimplementing low-level wheels all over the place. I don't think a Linux desktop would have rivalled MS but it could have made more gains than it has.