Linux Won the Desktop Wars a Long Time Ago

Certainly that included the traditional desktop, the cumbersome machine that plugs into a wall and is anchored to a particular location within a home. But we also meant laptops and notebooks, which serve the same function as desktops just somewhat more conveniently. Probably included in the mix would be workstations, which are basically just desktops being used in business environments. What wouldn’t be included would be rack mounted servers, mainframes, supercomputers and other types of computing where Linux already dominated. From the 1990s through 2006, when we talked about our desire for Linux to get traction, we were talking about increasing the use of Linux on devices used to do word processing, surf the web, read and write email, manipulate images – all of the things we were used to doing on our personal computers. Many of us rightly felt that the elusive “year of Linux” was an inevitability, that eventually Tux would get discovered by John Q. Public. Not only was Linux the best technology, certainly superior to Windows, it’s licensing made it free. I trust I’m preaching to the choir here and don’t need to explain what I mean by software freedom.