I don't think that's the problem here. The problem the developers of the game have seems to be the fact that Canonical is claiming "the authors of Binding of Issac [sic] declined to make their game available" when the truth is they are the one who rejected the game. Put it plainly, they lied. To me personally, it felt like Canonical is trying to appear "open", while in fact they are controlling their own store's content, just like everyone else.
They initially rejected the game. Once it got popular, Canonical wanted to put it in, but because of the earlier rejection and the SMB stuff, Ed declined.
So their statement was technically correct, but without knowing the full context was misleading.
That's still not quite right. Edmund's full comment was:
"they are just trying to save face. they rejected isaac a while ago because its content "wasnt a good fit for the Ubuntu store" then changed their tune once they found out how popular it was and that it was a part of the HIB."
Ubuntu have had some kind of arrangement with the HIB for a while where they offer as many of the HIB games for download as possible through the Ubuntu Software Center, and HIB purchasers don't have to pay again for them. What presumably changed wasn't the popularity of the game but the fact that it was part of HIB7. I can't imagine Ubuntu expected it to be a massive seller for them, given that the unauthorized SMB apparently sold all of 77 copies.
