But nostalgia aside, something I find interesting (and frankly a bit distressing) is what seems to me to simply be an acceptance that it's all going to end with Linux. That is to say, no one ever seems to talk about what will come *after* Linux. Will Linus's kernel truly be the last kernel anyone works on seriously? Somehow I very much doubt that. And yet, you don't see a lot of talk about evolutionary paths beyond Linux; it's a sort of tunnel vision.
For a while, it seemed like Plan 9 and/or Inferno could be the way forward, but they seem to be all but dead. What will be the next step forward?