As an open-source desktop solution, Linux has remained largely unchallenged in terms of numbers, though many haven't paid attention because it was such a small market segment. Now that the OSS desktop market has have a rebirth of sorts, there's room for competition, and FreeBSD aims to take on Linux. Primarily focusing on feature-support, FreeBSD does have many advantages that can help it gain an audience, including a more focused development team, unlike the various versions of desktop Linux which are quite varied. As far as ease of use, FreeBSD has that goal exactly in mind.
"Developers are doing work so you can plug in a USB stick and have it appear on the desktop and just work, without having to mess around with command prompts and work out arcane commands," Long said.
If you're a fan of OSS or just trying something new, it's definitely worth a look and it will be very interesting to see what happens next. Maybe this will encourage more Linux development, maybe this will put OSS at a larger overall share. It's a win win.