Canonical seem to be doing what pretty much every other company which has been involved with linux has done, which is to add a few of their own proprietary bits

Canonical seem to be doing what pretty much every other company which has been involved with linux has done, which is to add a few of their own proprietary bits. Having stuff like Ubuntu One isn't necessarily a problem provided that the user of the OS isn't required to use it as part of the essential or normal usage of the system. As long as these things remain optional, that's ok.