“Just when you thought it was over, bar the odd bit of Microsoft
licence price gouging, the PC desktop wars may be about to erupt
again. We know about Sun’s StarOffice and its megaphone marketing
of it against MS Office but we also know that getting a SuSE Linux
desktop software package and having it run your scanner, your tape
drive, your printer and any other peripheral whose operation you
take for granted in Microsoft’s plug-and-play USB world, is pure
fantasy, fit only for the most rabid Linux geek with a wardrobe
full of anoraks.“This might be about to change. The Open Systems Development
Lab, ODSL, the Linux community’s development centre, has set up a
10-person desktop task force to define the way forward to an
OSDL-blessed Linux-based desktop. Make no mistake. The whipped
remnants of previous desktop wars want to strike back…”