Always fun to make some predictions for the coming year, mostly so one can look back at the end of it and find out how wrong one was, or how innacurate. Anyway, here I go with my predictions for 2006:

• The cultural collision between the Free Software community and the content industry will fully blossom with the widespread availability of Blue-Ray and HD-DVD devices everywhere with their new DRM systems.
• The major players in the music industry will start to feel the pain of getting squeezed between other activities lessening the interest in music and improved distribution and marketing of independent music. Copy protection scheemes will start to look more like a liability than a tool for survival to them.
• GNU/Linux will become a serious contented as a media platform and Fluendo will play a major part in that rise.
• Microsoft will appear more and more like an ally of the open source community in their fight against DRM as also Microsoft sees that the increasingly draconic DRM measures requested by the content industry is killing the usability of their systems.
• The Spanish speaking world will have many major Linux desktop deployments and come to be seen as the adoption leader for Linux desktops. They will mostly choose GNOME as their Desktop.
• Research papers will start to get published that show that software patents are hindering growth and innovation, not promoting it. Supports of free markets like the Economist will start to demand wide patent reforms.
• Creative Commons experiences something bad enough to open their eyes to the fact that open content is only open if its in an open format.
• There will be people in 2006 not agreeing with my predictions
• And last but not least, the new Spanish laws against smoking in public areas cause both Wim and Edward to stop smoking