“Developers expect groundswell of demand after smoothing out
lingering interface issues. …a handful of companies are placing
big bets on desktop Linux taking off.
Even Linus Torvalds sees huge potential (though he says so with
his trademark smirk, so it’s hard to tell whether he’s
kidding).”
“…members of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) — a
non-profit group that promotes shared software — have ambitious
plans for Gnome, a user-interface project that’s designed to make
Linux more accessible.”
“Gnome is in a battle with the K Desktop Environment, or KDE,
another graphical user interface designed to make Unix-like
operating systems easier to use — though each side is quick to
downplay the rivalry.”
“And then there are the big-name companies looking at Linux
desktop. At the show, Corel… showed off its Linux distribution,
due in September, and promised a new Linux-compatible version of
WordPerfect for Office early next year. Others, such as Dell
Computer Corp. … had already said they would ship Linux on some
desktop computers.”