Doc Searls: "In the long run the best refuge from Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti isn't with Steve Jobs and his beautiful machines (much as we may love them). It's the guys in the hills making free tanks out of spare parts." [Scripting News]

KDE or GNOME gaining market share against Windows would be mostly a symbolic victory.  The fact that (as Doc points out) Linux has commoditized the guts of the OS -- that's a very real victory.  It's happened, and it matters. 

The next step for Linux on the desktop is to get enough of a user base of free apps running on general purpose personal computers so that there's a backlash when the RIAA and MPAA, with the complicity of Intel and Microsoft, snap the neck of the PC, rendering it unable to do anything to digital media other than play it.  The goal is for there to be an alternative in place before it happens so we'll realize what we've lost once it's gone.

10:33:25 PM