Well, it sure took them awhile. Or not. Here (yay!) is the Ubuntu 11.10 features, defined.

<blockquote>Hi Everyone -

UDS is over and any post UDS super bugs (stupid ubuflu/ubupneuomonia) should be out of people's systems. Here is the feature list of items for Ubuntu this cycle.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric?searchtext=desktop-o

As always, you can see the burndown progress here: http://people.canonical.com/~platform/workitems/oneiric/canonical-desktop-team.htmlThe complete Oneiric Release Schedule can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneiricReleaseSchedule

If you are only interested in the highlights, here is a quick rundown of some of the major things people will be working on this cycle:

• Gnome3/GTK3https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-gtk3-gnome3- Plan how to integrate GNOME 3 and port our GTK2/pygtk2 apps to it.
• Unity-2d/Qt by default - Unity-2d as default 2d experience.
• LightDM https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-lightdm- default login/user switching by LightDM. Ubuntu themed greeter as well.
• Deja Duphttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-deja-dup-default- Simple backup by default
• ISO Localizationhttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-cd-localization- Tools and a workflow to provide truly localized CD images. This goes beyond merely installing the right translations, we also want to localize e. g. default bookmarks, or provide a custom background image.
• Gwibber UIhttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-gwibber-gtk3- Gwibber UI port to speed up UI and more modern look and feel
• CD Space https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-cdspace- Ongoing battle with CD space
• Thunderbird as defaulthttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-default-email-client- Provisional switch to Thunderbird as default email client
• Software Center UIhttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-software-center-ui- Focus areas for this cycle are a general visual "makeover" (new icons, etc.), enhanced integration with Unity, targeted performance improvements, better touch-friendliness, increased stability and usability improvements.
• Mozilla release cycle adaptationshttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-mozilla-rapid-release-maintenance- how we adapt to the new rapid release process for Mozilla packages.

Great UDS, and I think an even better upcoming cycle! There are some really big platform things coming and Oneiric is going to rock!

Thanks, Jason</blockquote>

<em>Via the<a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2011-May/033300.html"> Ubuntu Devel mailing list</a></em>