Comment 56 for bug 531190

about this effort duplication, all of you can read the opensource book: "After the software wars":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Software_Wars
It speak exacly about the relationship between Ubuntu and the Debian distributions (toghether others very interesting arguments inside MS, and its relationship with future of opensource).
Remember that everything is developed and fixed in Debian beta distribution, then got transferred to Ubuntu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian
http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros
Only the CDRom distro installer and some other minor parts are developed and manteined by Ubuntu itself, so only those should be reported to Ubuntu. For all the others, to speed up fixing, please post the bugs on the proper uptream lists (kernel.org, freedesktop.org, gnome.org, sourceforge.net, debian.org, etc)