If "a year of GNU/Linux on the desktop" is defined as a year when GNU/Linux has finally started its steady encroachment to the desktop then 2006 is the year. A lot of users have started using GNU/Linux on their desktops long before, but it is 2006 which marked the two probably biggest GNU/Linux desktop releases to date, Ubuntu Dapper and Novell SuSE 10. It is 2006 which marks the biggest opportunity for GNU/Linux to steal the desktop market share from Windows due to the bad reputation behind the pending Windows Vista release.And the eyes and focus of both the GNU/Linux community and major GNU/Linux corporations such as Novell are fixed on that opportunity. Novell marketing is true: "Your Linux is ready."
What is happening at this stage is what I would call "cleaning out the pockets" of the market consisted of the remaining advanced desktop computer users. Those are everyone who knows at least enough to be able to install and re-install Windows. Those are the users who don't need to get the OS pre-installed on their computer to be able to run it. Those are the users which are, at an increasing rate, considering trying out GNU/Linux. In alot of cases they are in fact being chased away to GNU/Linux, as this guy will tell you. Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot by being what they are, a *proprietary software* company who actively wants to fight unauthorized copying and use of their software (AKA "piracy"). What their measures against this "piracy" end up causing though is not so much a cease of unauthorized copying, but the steady reduction of their desktop market share, as rigorous measures they have put in place are annoying users away to the free platform readily waiting for them: a Free Software platform which is GNU/Linux.
http://www.nuxified.org/how_microsoft_is_loosing_to_gnu_linux