Android is free software as well, so what? Its application in real life generally is not, and judging from how well Firefox OS is able to overcome it (hint: it isn't), Ubuntu for phones will probably just follow the same path.
"Enjoy our awesome free system, but if device manufacturer locked down the bootloader and made access to root account troublesome, then it's not our fault, but manufacturers!"
Fortunately projects like OpenPhoenux exist, Neo900 will be available in few months. Both Firefox OS and Ubuntu for phones should work on it, as well as many other distros, including standard PC ones (making Debian usable as a phone is a matter of few apt-get installs and some basic configuration); without any proprietary drivers sans GPU acceleration (but looking at Replicant 4.2 running smoothly on GTA04 without 3D acceleration, I guess you can live without it if you really care about "software purity").
While Mozilla and Canonical might be doing some good job in software development, I simply don't care about their efforts in building hardware ecosystem, as they're even not trying to hide that they're doing it exactly the same like Android one, and that's unacceptable for me.