Ubuntu is no different, and the next version, out in October, is going to be called the Karmic Koala. You can generally get an inclination of what Ubuntu is going to feel like from the name, and we think the Karmic Koala is going to be more of an interim release than a major overhaul. More here

Unless you happen to run a data centre, that is. “A good Koala knows how to see the wood for the trees, even when her head is in the clouds,” said Mark Shuttleworth with the announcement of Koala. “Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of cloud computing by embracing the APIs of Amazon EC2, and making it easy for anybody to set up their own cloud using entirely open tools.”