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What Will Linux Be Capable Of, 3 Years Down the Road?
An anonymous reader writes "In a prediction of the open-source future, InfoWeek speculates on What Linux Will Look Like In 2012. The most outlandish scenario foresees Linux forsaking its free usage model to embrace more paid distros where you get free Linux along with (much-needed) licenses to use patent-restricted codecs. Also predicted is an advance for the desktop based on — surprise — good acceptance for KDE 4. Finally, Linux is seen as making its biggest imprint not on the PC, but on mobile devices, eventually powering 40 million smartphones and netbooks. Do you agree? And what do you see for Linux in 4 years?"
About 5 years to late.
My guess is that the ZUI is going to take over. If you look at the display tech just waiting to be used and the processing power available then there is no reason that for a distinction to be made between disk and memory e.g. running or stored.
So all my documents will be open and ready to be read/edited.
Jeff Raskin left a good demo of a ZUI.
Alan Kay showed what a 3d environment could be like with Croquet.
Johnny Lee showed what could be done with accurate head tracking.
Combine those with a machine that understands a single address space and you'll have a machine that will blow away any ideas that a gui is the final answer.
Alternatively we can spend our time building a UI that was super ceded 10+ years ago and implement it using resource sapping design. Then declare it a success and pat ourselves on the back.
If you must have a gui look what the XFCE team have done with maybe two orders of magnitude less resource available to them.
Gnome/KDE are failing as surely as the USSR did.