All of this leaves the Ubuntu guys with a very real problem: Where do they go next? What do you do once you've won the race?

It's an interesting question, and it's not hard for those of us who follow Linux to dream-up suggestions. Just take-up a few interesting technologies that are lying about on the open source workshop benches. The Ubuntu project is already sponsoring the porting of , but they could be the first distro to feature Google's speedy new browser. That would be a significant coup. How about if they made a large part of the project? And what's been holding them back from including all this time?

I'm sure you can think of other suggestions.

However, the biggest changes to Ubuntu in the mid-term are perhaps already being planned, and will come with Gnome 3.0, due sometime next year (current releases of Ubuntu are based around the 2.26 line). In many ways, the fate of Ubuntu and Gnome are implicitly linked, because Ubuntu is a flagship Gnome distribution.