Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

No, because this is totally different.  This is a way for all of those millions of Web
developers to start making desktop apps using all of the knowledge they have no, without
needing to learn a new framework or GUI toolkit or anything like.

People take their existing Flash, HTML, CSS, JavaScript/ActionScript, and XML knowledge and
can start making desktop apps.

We're seeing the same thing happen in the reverse direction, too.  Qt is moving to embed a
WebKit derived engine in the core toolkit, and GTK+ might pick up good WebKit integration soon
too.  Windows already has IE engine integration.  The result is that traditional desktop apps
can start making use of existing developer knowledge to start making prettier and more
flexible GUIs than what traditional GUI toolkits offer.

The common fear is that Web developers don't know how to make good usable UI and that making
Web-like desktop apps easy will result in tons of really shitty and hard-to-use and
inconsistent apps.  I think that kind of fear is non-sense since we _already_ have that
problem.  Just because people use the GTK+ toolkit doesn't mean they layout buttons, dialogs,
or other widgets in any kind of consistent or sensible fashion.