Not to say that this or that got it first, but these sort of fences are something that they are marketing a lot as a feature of KDE 4 now for people on Linux. Not sure exactly the differences between the two, but on KDE all fences are actually just folders (last time I checked) that are rendered like this on the desktop.

It look like Fences is built up differently, but the idea with folders (which is a heavy part of how Linux works) is that shortcuts, apps, files, or even other folders need aren’t just being displayed on the desktop, but you are actually seeing the contents of the folders. This is good when you interact with the same folder from other places like applications, the console, or your ‘explorer’, as you’ll see you’re desktop folders reflect those changes automatically.