Larry the Free Software Guy would never let 2010 pass without a several timely forecasts. While this year lacks last year's inspiration, it would never stop him from making predictions like "2010 will absolutely, positively, without a doubt be the year of the Linux deskt . . . oh, never mind," and nine more.

Bruce Byfield, avoiding a look back at his last years' predictions, looks ahead and makes nine specific predictions about what to expect in 2010.

Even though this is the end of the decade only for those who can't count, retrospectives seem more common than predictions in the last days of 2009. Or maybe, after a year of recession, all the pundits are nervous about the future.

We can take for granted, I think, that open source will continue to gain popularity. 2010 will not be the fabled Year of the Linux Desktop, but we should continue to see the same slow, steady increase in adoption of the past decade.

What will follow are not promises or even predictions about what KDE is going to do in 2010. Instead, I'll be writing about things that we should probably put thought and attention to in the coming year. Some of these things are already getting attention and effort, some of them aren't. Some are outright challenges we face, some are simply opportunities.

Watch a fun video based on 8 IT predictions of rPath. Everyone has their predictions for the new year but do they often prognosticate using an animated video? The folks over at rPath created a clever video animation depicting their reasonable and humorous predictions for 2010. rPath might be best known for its online virtual appliance builder. You can also download rBuilder.

Maybe it's the post-holiday letdown, but looking back on 2010 I'm not sure the open source community has that much to be grateful for this year. Not only have we missed another year for the Linux desktop, but there's been plenty to gripe about in 2010

Everyone has posted their predictions for 2010 but here's the real scoop on what's going to happen in 2010 with Linux and Linux-oriented hardware and software products. Get ready to see the biggest increase in Linux adoption in history. You can say you saw it here first. These are in no particular ranking or order.

2008 was an eventful, breakthrough year for many open source companies, and 2009 will be even more so, especially in terms of business purchasing patterns, software business model shifts, and enterprise software stack evolution.