Linux -- will it ever make it on the desktop?

While my answer is yes, others think differently, including this guy from InformationWeek.

Here are the first two paragraphs:

It is inarguably accurate to note that, while Linux is a success on the server side--Apache on Linux runs more Web sites than Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s ISS, though the latter is gaining--the open-source operating system has been a dismal failure on the desktop. There are at least seven solid reasons, which I'll detail below, why Linux hasn't moved the needle beyond a single-digit desktop market share since it hit the scene in 1991, and never will.

Desktop Linux's failure to launch is all the more mystifying when you consider that it's hard to think of any technology which has been backed by such an enthusiastic and committed group of supporters. Unfortunately, that boost has largely backfired.

On the contrary, I think the relative simplicity, sheer usability and security, as well as cost and lack of vendor lock-in will all work to slowly push more and more businesses and home users into the Linux camp.

With free, open-source applications like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, the GIMP and others being ported to Windows and Mac architectures, users who have never worked on anything but a closed, proprietary operating system will be using FOSS for the first time, and that's a small step over to making the rest of their system FOSS as well.

And while projects like Ubuntu are doing so much to bring Linux to the more "casual" user, I predict that an easier-than-ever Linux (call it "Linux for Dummies," if you'd like), be it Ubuntu or some other yet-to-be released distro, will cause a major stir in the computer world and shift a sizable percentage of desktops away from Windows and to free, open solutions.

And as I've also said before, Linux is right now the most likely candidate, but the next popular OS could very well be something we've never seen -- a new project cooking in somebody's head that attacks the problem of the personal computer operating system in a whole new way.