I have been using KDE and Linux on nearly all of my machines for the last two years. Mostly I am excited by the potential open source can bring to the desktop computing world. Nonetheless, I get frustrated some times by the lack of both “long term” planning and patience demonstrated by most users and some developers. Do we need to have a Linux desktop year? Of course not it is a ridiculous concept. Will the open desktop ever miss the chance to become mainstream? Again NO it is another totally ridiculous urban legend. People will sill use a sort of computing device to the end of eternity. So as long that there is a demand for software, there will always be room for “better” software taking more market share. So what we need to do is set realistic long term plans for the future. How will we reach our target within the resources we have?

The desktop it self is complex and it is more complex when creating it using open source software. An average Linux desktop consists of many different software coming from various vendors. For example, Grub to load the Kernel, Linux, X.org, KDE, tens (or perhaps hundreds of libraries), software from ISV and etc. Therefore, it is not only the job of KDE to provide the whole experience. It is the shared efforts of many teams around the world. It is granted that the communication and coordination between these teams can be difficult. Nevertheless, it is not an impossible task.

What I would like to see and perhaps participate in creating is a blueprint for the future of the open source desktop. We need to create a list of minimum requirements for it and list of available open source software, which can satisfy some or most of these requirements. Afterwards, perform a reality check on each component in that stack. What features is it missing? How stable is it? Is it extendable? Did it reach a critical stage where fixing a single bug will create 10 more? Finally, an approximate plan to reach the common goal of creating a solid user friendly Linux desktop could be generated with an approximate release date. As long as we move forward in the right direction we will reach our goals even if the steps were small. Will the most of us be happy if we reached that goal in say 2012 or 2013. I think yes. We should not rush things, live in a dream world by pretending that it is ready for average Joe or focus on secondary goals while forgetting the main goal of creating a usable and stable open source desktop.

Anyone has comments to share?

interesting but i dont think we really need it

each of us can focus on improving one desktop. for example if you can suggest improvement to kde there is forum here for that

then devs and users of other desktops can copy the features to the other desktop. for example gnome can build something of their own based on the plasma concept. they can also look in the kde improvements forun to look for stuff to take to gnome (without waiting for it to be built in kde)

since everything is open very much can be done on the fly

The difficulty about thinking of one desktop is that the desktop is merely a metaphor for an interface and interfaces vary depending on whether you are talking about sat-navs, mobile phones, netbooks, laptops, desktops, browsers, EPOS terminals etc.

At the moment there is a lot of interest in interfaces that can work on several different types of kit, such as mobile phones, netbooks and laptops and there is some doubt whether the desktop metaphor will survive or become a minority interest.