Proprietary vendors Microsoft and Apple are also talking about “internet centrism” as the main roadmap for the next versions of their OSes. (Though we were going here before we learned of their plans, and I bet we’ll still do it better—for example, working with all the best-in-class services and sites you want to use, not just Microsoft’s Live services.)

Future GNOME releases might have seamless integration with online services and store their configuration on the web - Novell and parts of the community seem to agree with Red Hats proposal

Those who follow GNOME have probably read about the GNOME Online Desktop. After reading about this concept, I find myself very confused at what it is they’re actually trying to accomplish. Why do I need to imagine that sort of an operating system? I’ve had that for years now.

Typical Linux desktop options like KDE and GNOME limit the way computer users interact with the applications and programs on their systems. There's not much to do beyond opening and closing an app, and moving or resizing a window. The development team behind Étoilé is building a desktop interface that aims to stand that idea on its head.

Gnome is pretty cool. It’s simple and solid. Unfortunately a default Gnome desktop is not very appealing to the eyes. We all come to the point where we wonder, “Can I make my Gnome desktop look super l33t?”

No, this isn't another rant about how you should convert to Linux because it's free, although it is free. Free is a four-letter word among those who scoff at the mere mention of Linux. Yes, Linux is free, but that doesn't give it an unfair advantage on the desktop because most computers arrive preloaded with Windows — so to the buyer it appears Windows is also free.

One of the reoccurring ideas in revisions of the desktop is to tie it more closely to the Internet. The idea was last popular in the late 1990s, when one example of it was the use of KDE's Konqueror for both web browsing and file management. Now, with the GNOME Online Desktop (GOD), the idea has been revived to reflect the rise of social networks and file sharing.

Regarding the GNOME 3 desktop, I was hoping that the developers will at least make an attempt to customize the default desktop in a manner that makes it more user-friendly, just like that of Linux Deepin or Comice OS. But that is not what you will see if you install a Mageia 2 GNOME 3 desktop. Rather, you get the familiar but so user-unfriendly default GNOME 3 desktop.

The open source desktop world got a boost this week with the release of GNOME 2.30 -- the latest incarnation of one of the leading open source desktop GUIs that's a part of nearly every major Linux distribution. With GNOME 2.30, the open source effort is adding new features that aim to make it easier to connect to online services, such as social networking giant Facebook.