Linux has already progressed further and faster than sceptics predicted, fuelling speculation that operating systems would become "transparent" and that the long-running operating system wars were experiencing their final battles. The battle this time is at the enterprise system end of the scale.

Some users wouldn't have gone near a computer without at least one; others believe they're only good for those rare times when a graphical Web browser is needed. With recent developments between the GNOME and KDE camps, 2001 could shape up to be an entertaining year for the world of window managers and desktop environments.

"Why would the world's biggest computer company invest so much in "free" software? The answer: It's about software infrastructure, the "control point" of account control. The IBM open source thrust is a way to blunt Microsoft's advance into the enterprise."

"For now, Linux 2.4 is for the adventuresome, the Linux lover--not someone whose bottom line depends on Linux. Besides, even after Linux 2.4 ages well, most users won't get that much more from it anyway."

"This will be the year Linux-based appliances gain more notoriety, although you won't see a flood of them quite yet. In future years, we'll see Linux-based microwave ovens that read the bar code on your frozen dinner and program themselves for optimum cooking. Eventually, frozen dinners will include disposable smart chips that communicate directly with the oven."

"Neither achieves the usefulness of the very best desktop interfaces out there (OS/2 Warp with Object Desktop and a couple of freeware utilities, or arguably the MacOS), but they're advancing pretty rapidly and may well overtake those venerable environments within the next year or two. In addition, they both benefit from being very cross-platform (though they're used mainly on Linux and Unix)."

"In an article in the Los Angeles Times recently, Mark Kellner, wrote of having tried to switch to a Linux desktop for 14 days. Kellner's article, for all its flaws, is just the kind of thing that those of us in the Linux community ought to look at, think about, and at the end ask two questions: What are we trying to bring about? How well are we

doing it?"

What do people say when you ask them what they'd do if they had a magic wand that was able to make just one change to Linux? These people are programmers, project managers, consultants, and journalists, and they all have two things in common: They like Linux, and they make all or part of their income with it.

"Much of the initial frenzy centred on speculation that Linux could break the virtual monopoly that Microsoft Corp. holds in desktop operating systems. That ambition -- always a long shot -- has been shelved in favour of a less glamourous, but crucial role in the technology world: running the powerful computer servers that are the engine of the Internet."

This year Linux became more mainstream and popular, while its community lost its innocence.