And of course, sticking to proprietary solutions in a long run would be rather a sick idea.
That's what distros are for. The "Linux" family of operating systems are used for a very wide variety of uses, some of which are orthogonal (and sometimes incompatible) with "desktop" features.
Something like "Year of the KDE desktop" or "Year of the Linux Mint desktop" would make much more sense than trying to shove all of Linux into one pigeon hole. In fact, even within "desktop" there is variation. While an easy to use, mostly automagic desktop is a good idea, that's not the only definition of "desktop".
Ultimately, this is the the biggest problem with the idea of "THE Linux desktop"[1]: one size never fits all. Fortunately, Linux distributions exist[2] allowing for great variety - including "everything just works" desktop distributions. Just remember that the Linux ecosystem is larger than one type of distro.
[1] and systemd, and 15+ years ago the "desktop environments" that insisted there should be only one GUI toolkit, etc
[2] This assumes distros decide to keep their own identity instead of continuing on the homogeneity bandwagon that many joined when they converted to systemd. Turning into a clone of Red Hat is the path to obsolescence.
When that happens, I don't think the Canonical or Redhat will be able to compete, and only Google will be able to create an OS on top of Linux, and open-sourcing won't do any good because the most important services will be behind Google servers.
That the dominate platforms have any customers at all just illustrates how mediocre the entire software industry is.
If software were medicine we would still be leeching people and learning about the miasma theory of germs.
The desktop / personal user domain is looking like it's in the early stages of transformation, with mass data collection to support voice search and user intent prediction. While there's something to be said for privacy, I don't think consumers will care enough, and I don't think desktop linux systems outside of whatever Google may make is going to be adequately competitive.
This will likely not be a server concern. Engineers probably won't be interested in a service that opaquely collects data and sends it off to remote locations just so that they can say, "Cortana, run the Ansible script to redeploy my API server." But desktop users would find value in saying, "Cortana, move all email from unknown entities to my todo list."
And if my assertion that intention prediction and voice search will be competitive features for users, features that rely on mass data collection and expensive top talent, then I think organizations like Canonical or RedHat will fall behind in the desktop/mobile/user os space.
Apple's no M$, but they are certainly competitive.
When I think of what organizations will be competing on machine-learning backed features like intention prediction or voice search, I think of Apple, Microsoft, or Google. Those OS features won't be inside the OS. They'll be backed by a wealth of proprietary data hidden behind company servers.
I think user expectations for what a modern OS ought do will evolve, and I don't think Canonical or Redhat will be able to catch up to Microsoft, Apple, or Google.
Eventually, what we think of "Linux OS" will be Android (and if you want, OS X) and maybe some other offerings by these big giants, but the most user-demanded features won't be on the OS. Therefore, Samsung can't just fork Android and expect to compete sans Google, and Canonical or Redhat won't be able to compete either.
Apple can't take code from Linux as the code is GPL licensed. OSX is largely based on NeXT and BSD. Linux and OSX are both POSIXish though.
Offices most certainly could run linux only if they weren't chickenshit (I mostly kid, but after seeing how broken the desktop management model is now anyway, I don't see why Linux can't be used more in Corporate.)