without any additional input, when I look at the world today and I think about what is possible for tomorrow, let alone three years from now, I can't help but think about three things: things of the future from "yesterday" (a la Bill Gates' "The Road Ahead"), things of today, and things of the future of tomorrow (a la Kaku's "Physics of the Future").

In "The Road Ahead", Gates waxed eloquent about payment systems and the Internet, which we have fully embraced today.

In today's tech, we talk about various technologies like Apple's Payment system, breaches, and next generation firewalls. This is useful, but not entirely.

In Michio Kaku's "Physics of the Future", we see how things are supposed to be. I.e. the way things are going to be.

If we looked at Linux, FreeBSD, or any other such *NIX, we are forced to look at a couple of different aspects: what we see as available today (i.e. what is in the code-base today) and what is available tomorrow (i.e. what is available in road-maps and future plans.)

When we look at today vs. tomorrow, and we consider into that all of the different things that are foretold in both "The Road Ahead" and "Physics of the Future", I can't help but think that Linux and *NIX are missing out on at least some of the consumer aspects of the future. That said, Linux and *NIX may very well be at the forefront of some aspects of the future on account of the fact that *NIX is far more open, and therefor accessible to researchers, than other operating systems.

As the foundation of the "web", its obvious that *NIX is going to play 'some' role, the question is, what role will it play? To date, Linux, in particular, has played a key role in the hand-held computing space on account of the fact that Android is Linux based. That said, if we consider that Linux is the basis for a whole variety of hand-held devices, as well as the back-end for the rest of it, I think we have to consider the central role of Linux and *NIX.

At the end of the day, all of that means that Linux and *NIX have a central role in the future of tech.

Cheers,
Soda