How do all three thoughts fit together? The Linux desktop replacing the Windows desktop in its current incarnation is both silly and impractical. As our applications move to the network the need to replicate the Windows  desktop computing environment on Linux  is unnecessary.

What needs to happen is that the new connected desktop needs to become both a network client and a host for virtual machines. Effort once spent on developing productivity applications that are targeted by platform is now being spent on hosted applications like those at 37 Signals which works on all platforms right out of the box. Right now virtualization for servers are hot, look at the VMware Network which is distributing software applications and rPath who's generating software appliances on the server. This will  eventually start spilling over on the desktop. If you have ever used Klik on Ubuntu you will get the idea.

More to come on this later...