Interesting opinion piece "Why the free software desktop year is not yet here, and why it doesn't matter anymore" by Alberto Ruiz.

Essentially Alberto argues that we will never see the "year of the free desktop" because it won't be a "desktop" metaphor we will be working with in the near future.

It is his opinion that "Software as a Service" (SaaS) will take over not only the software in our computers, but it will also take over the "operating system". Gone will be the days of having to load an operating system; it will just be there.

I know many people have argued this idea, but we are so much closer to SaaS running nearly all our software that it is only reasonable to consider that SaaS may also run our desktop operating system.

Read Alberto's article and comment if you like it!