I mostly agree with you. But there was this, where I beg to differ: > On the desktop, the Year of Desktop Linux seems to be bound to running the Linux kernel o

I mostly agree with you. But there was this, where I beg to differ: > On the desktop, the Year of Desktop Linux seems to be bound to running the Linux kernel on top of virtualization. In my experience as soon as your IaaS starts offering virtualized desktops, all the users start wondering why you aren't offering Windows VMs. Then the pressure starts to build to bow to that demand. If you tell users that it's Linux desktops or nothing, they just change to another utility company who gives them the experience they find least challenging, even if it's less secure, less reliable and costs them more. Reminding people about the freedom and other benefits of Linux they'll be missing out on just provokes shrugs and the old retort of "but I need to get work done, I don't have time for your religious principals." The future is definitely Linux, but that old chestnut about Year of the Linux Desktop is never, ever going to happen. Linux is optimized for large servers and small devices. For such magisteria, you can attract skilled engineers to make things work, and naturally those same engineers can make Linux work on the meso-devices of the desktop realm. But the desktop realm will always be dominated by OSes optimized for that in-between area, where people balk at needing to do their own systems administration, especially when it puts them at odds with what they perceive to be a consensus.