During the time in which I’ve followed Linux development and its various distributions, every year I come across several articles on “Why 200X will be the year of the Linux Desktop“. Every time I read those posts, I have just one reply in mind – “It’s not going to happen”.

To my shame, Peter Murray-Rust put up a reply to my post below in just a few hours, where it had taken me days to answer his original posting. So with this reply to his reply, I'm trying to do better.

"...When the heart is torn from the flax bush,
where will the bell bird sing?
You ask me, what is the most important thing on earth?
My reply is it is people, it is people, it is people ..."

Newsflash people. There is no “Year of the Linux Desktop”. There will never be one. Before you start looking for sharp rocks to throw at me, let me start by saying I am a Linux user. I worked with all major distributions, roamed in Slackware land for about two years, tried to get accustomed to Red Hat’s RPM hell in a time when Linux was a wasteland and there were only a bunch of people that were using it.

Let’s begin with - Linux is simply the best. Open, free of charge, stable, reliable, flexible, and scalable. And God only knows why people do not want to use it. They grumble that it’s difficult, shows hardware problems, and lacks applications.

It seems every new computer in the last year has had Linux, but to most people that doesn’t mean anything. It probably leaves you wondering, “what’s this Linux thing everyone’s talking about?”
So, what is this Linux thing?

I'm going to talk about the community's idiotic ... treatment of this subject. Too many other people have talked about what the problems are, and why they do or do not matter, to discuss that would be a waste of my time. I'm going to discuss why those people are all focusing on the WRONG thing.

Here, as promised, is the SUSE Reply [PDF] about lifting the bankruptcy stay, more properly titled SUSE's Reply in Support of its Motion for Relief from the Automatic Stay to Complete International Arbitration. This document in in response to SCO Chapter 11 Trustee Edward Cahn's Objection to SUSE's motion, and they do not hold back.

I was somewhat amused to read Michael Gartenberg's comments that Linux is still not ready for the desktop. Please don't tell that to any of the people who last year logged in 40,000 times to the 28 Linux computers at our small town library and community center in Takoma Park, Maryland. These people are using a Linux solution called Userful, which puts up with robust use day in and day out.