Longhorn's arrival will indeed be monumental, as their research teams are finally producing something worthwhile. The OSS world has much to do in preparation for this release; this version of Microsoft's OS will not simply offer trivial UI "enhancements" that appeal to users, as it has done in the past - they are really targeting both users and developers very forcefully this time around.
I interned there last summer and got to see and use Longhorn, and saw the beta-Longhorn technologies (including the amazing Avalon, as well as a super alpha XAML (pronounced "zamel" implementation). The developers were excited, as they should be.
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