‘Silicon Island: Why the free software desktop year is not yet here, and why it doesn’‘t matter anymore.’
There is something to this, but the desktop is more than just an end terminal on the great big network, and will remain more than that. So it does matter. It matters in that the end terminal on the network controls how you access the network, and the desktop remains a very significant end terminal, particularly if you model it as the end terminal that connects non-networked devices to the network (like scanners, cameras, iPods, and other specialized devices for consuming or producing media).