Almost everyone will have at least one completely up-to-date copy of their files. It's just a matter of signing up for a competing service and re-uploading. Four months seems like a long enough time to accomplish that.
For something as important as "file storage" 12 months would be a safer option to make sure everyone was alerted and reacted. Or Ubuntu may keep the files as torrents/tars after that for up to 12 months and ask for a payment of for download.
The problem with an extended shutdown is that it eliminates any sense of urgency to act. If I know I only have 2 months to find a new provider, I'll start searching and migrating now. Give me a year, and I'll ignore the problem for 10 months before acting.
Freezing the accounts would be enough to create this sense of urgency, you wouldn't be able to modify or upload new files on the system. You would have to look for an alternative at that point...
yeah that's what i meant. People in special conditions who won't check their emails may lose all files... freezing in 4 months and keeping for 12 months may ensure nothing valuable is lost.
It's not only about file storage. Ubuntu One offered a Web service to programmatically access the files. Imagine you've developed an application that interfaces with Ubuntu One and is mission critical for your business.
I bet you can count the number of people who did that on one hand. They're not shuttering the service because it was popular. They are open sourcing the code though, so you can run your own version and not change any code.
Not essentially different from if you developed your business application on a PaaS which went bust or raised prices. These things happen unless you keep them in mind
