[kwlug disc.] others also notining FLOSS mainstreaming?

[Rick]

I'm on a CBC Overnight-digest with a summary of stories and various links.
Several times a week, the summary has a "TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE NEWS"
section. And I'm noticing more FLOSS stories cropping up.

Stories like that recent Microsoft/Wikipedia story.
Previously summaries also included articles
on the website Second Life including mention that Second Life
is open-sourcing part of its website. Just today, I read
"Adobe to open PDF specification to industry" (but, not the source).

Anyway, I seem to be noticing a mainstreaming of FLOSS issues and ideas.
It's one thing to see such stories at slashdot.org but I had accepted
a division between my FLOSS interests, on one hand, and the mainstream
on the on the hand. In the past, I talked about these ideas with
my brother and, to him, the ideas seem unrealistic to apply widely
in the economy.

In past years, there was talk like "200X is the year of the Linux desktop".
But, like any s-curve, you can spend a long time at the base
before the S starts curving upward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations#The_S-Curve_and_technology_adoption

Also, of course, another sign of FLOSS spread is the recent spread
of LUGs to Cambridge and London.

So, are my selective filters just magnifying random events?
Or are any of you noticing more mainstream references into the world
of FLOSS (and the free media counterpart, such as Wikipedia)?

I was in high-school in the 1980s and I read about people going
back to the 1940s to 1960s talking about their vision
of "hook up computers" and getting "information on any topic"
and "going to work and buying things with your computer".
People had to live with these kinds of unreal predictions
for decades, hearing the same thing over and over.

On the other hand, with global-warming and oil-depletion,
I don't think the flying car will be coming any time soon.
And the predictions of space travel or 10 hour work weeks
have fallen flat.