If you haven't seen or heard it yet, the Linux Foundation's latest podcast featuring Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has been posted and is generating quite a lot of press coverage.

In the interview with Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, Torvalds discusses Microsoft's (marketing ploy) patent threats against Linux, what he sees as Sun's questionable open source idealogy, and why Linux on the desktop isn't making much of a dent in the market.

On the latter, in his words:

The desktop is also the thing where people get really upset if something changes, so it's really hard to enter the desktop market because people are used to whatever they used before, mostly Windows.

Wired writer Scott Gilbertson explains further:

Torvalds thinks that since the basic uses of the desktop have been established, changing it in some radical way is more likely to anger users than impress them. This goes a considerable way to explain why recent versions of both Windows and Mac OS X have largely been focused on "eye candy" and visual/interactive improvements rather than revolutionary new features.

Needless to say, Apple enthusiasts aren't too happy with his opinion of Mac OS X.