2005: The Year of Desktop Linux

Something big finally happened to the Linux community this past year. Linux finally broke through to the desktop market. With Distros like Ubuntu, SuSE and Mandriva (and an honourable mention to Fedora, MEPIS, and Debian, respectively) leading the way into the hearts of new Linux users from every country and every walk of life. From your average desktop user just fed up with Microsoft and Apple's Duopoly, to Government offices and big businesses looking for a stable, secure solution for their servers and workstations.

And on the software front...many developers have started cross-platforming their software and adopting GPL licences, two recent examples that i've personally seen are the development teams for the MMORPG "Second Life" and the Video Sharing application "Veoh!", though while both companies have yet to actually release the linux ports of their software...they have made the community aware that they either plan to, or in Veoh's case there is already a pre-alpha release, but only for use by those under the employ of the Veoh developers. These two companies are not the only ones, though...many more are realizing the potential Linux has, and not just in the realms of software development and server applications.

If this is what 2005 brought us, then 2006 looks to be an exciting year for Linux...in fact for all FOSS Software.