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Linux Business The Media

Ask Nicholas Petreley About Linux Usage Statistics 240

Posted by Roblimo from the lies-damned-lies-and-statistics dept.
This Slashdot discusssion, about a story Nick wrote, is already going (and heated). I did a NewsForge interview with a SuSE rep who quotes an IDC study that says Linux desktop use will double by 2004. Sounds nice, but how reliable are all these statistics? Nick's been studying Linux use in depth lately, so let's ask him directly what all of these numbers mean, if anything, and how IDC, Evans Data, and other analysts get and massage them. We'll post Nick's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.
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Ask Nicholas Petreley About Linux Usage Statistics More

Ask Nicholas Petreley About Linux Usage Statistics

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  • First Post (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MooseGuy529 ( 578473 ) <i58ht6b02@sneakem a i l.com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:32PM (#5530406) Homepage Journal

    What is the biggest hurdle, in your opinion, for Linux to be on everyone's desktop?

    • "What is the biggest hurdle, in your opinion, for Linux to be on everyone's desktop?"

      My PC game library.

    • Re:First Post (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How about if it didn't look like shit [kde.org]. That picture's just one example of the kind of screenshots Linux fans get all excited over (although they're usually a little less colourful than that and with far more ugly flashing lights and terminal windows). Can't you see that it's ugly? Look at the icons -- the spacing is wrong, the font is wrong. Look at the small, unlabeled buttons in the web browser. See the way the bar at the bottom doesn't fill the screen, yet feels the need to duplicate icons from the

      • Re:First Post (Score:2, Informative)

        by pdbogen ( 596723 )
        Now that's just unfair.
        Just because you can't figure out how to customize your X window manager doesn't mean we should condemn the kernel that it happens to run on. If nothing else, XPDE. The default Gnome/Sawfish desktop has three icons. One is a shortcut to your home directory under Nautilus (read: A file manager superior to explorer), one is your recycle bin/trashcan/what-have-you, and the third is something I don't remember that I always delete.

        If you increases resolution to something reasonable, it's

      • No drag-and-drop? No right-click?

        What are you on about? Right-clicking on practically anything in KDE gives me a translucent, drop-shadowed menu of context actions. Drag and drop works fine, I printed a file with it this morning.

        As to the rest of your comments, they also puzzle me. I have a dozen tiny icons in my taskbar for my most-used functions, anything which doesn't fit in there quickly and automatically makes it way into the most-used-apps section of the K menu, and there's a few icons on my desk

    • Re:First Post (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 )
      What is the biggest hurdle, in your opinion, for Linux to be on everyone's desktop?

      Yes, yes, yes, I am going to be marked as a troll. Sigh.

      Ask yourself this question: "Why should Linux be on everyone's desktop?" The usual reasons are (1) that it's open source and (2) that it's more secure than Windows. Those are legitimate points; many other such arguments are more vague and harder to objectively back-up. But even though those points are good, is this a legitimate basis for making the Linux kernel +
      • Because we don't have anything better, if you don't count Macs.

        I mean, I'd love for OSS community to develop something with no strings attached, like BeOS, say. but it's not about doing that - it's about getting things ported for it, and having COMPANIES BELIEVE IN IT - the latter takes a lot of time.

        With the momentum behind linux (and possibly FreeBSD, to a lesser extent), what other OSS alternatives are there for a real desktop operating system?

        As far as "company belief," many game makers are releasing
        • Because we don't have anything better, if you don't count Macs.

          This is the kind of reply you expect from someone who has only been exposed to Windows and UNIX-variants.

          "Operating system" is an outdated concept. All the cruft accumulated from Big Iron machines in the 1970s no longer applies in many or most cases. The mobile device people have this nailed, in that they're writing lean and mean operating environments with less memory thant you'd need to load gcc on a desktop. Rather than cloning UNIX yet
      • Whenever someone brings up that old old troll about X11 being obsolete, my bogometer shoots up to 10. What the hell do you mean, X11 is old? ASCII is old too, have you stopped using ASCII? X11 is beautifully designed. Its extensibility insures it against becoming outdated for a long time to come. In the last few years it has patched almost all of its desktop related weaknesses, like antialiasing and sound. Its network transparency is extremely useful. I can't live without it for a day. Bloat used to be an i

      • (1) that it's open source and (2) that it's more secure than Windows

        Actually (and unfortunately) the answer that most often wins decision-makers' hearts is (0) it's cheaper than Windows. I say `unfortunately' because raw cost overlooks many other benefits of Linux, and looking at the problem in such simple terms allows Microsoft to easily confuse and mislead the same decision-makers.

        IRL, (3) it's more reliable than Windows and (4) it's more manageable than Windows (both of which, in the end, relate to

  • My question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by damu ( 575189 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:33PM (#5530409) Journal
    Do you think statistics are nothing more of a marketing tool, and should the open source community use these numbers (usually squeued) to get some leverage when promoting open source alternatives to the higher ups?

    dam()

    • The only true figures are... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RoshanCat ( 145661 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:25PM (#5530862)
      http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

      It is fairly neutral(in fact even Linux & advanced users biased). It shows Marketshare of Linux has failed to register even a blip, while XP grew from 0% to a whopping 26% in just a few months.

      Before everyone spews some shit about how they access Google from office, I have got one word for you guys 'Corelation'. Most of the enterprise has not switched to XP, but yet XP shows up at 26%. Also I dont believe that after all those people switching to Linux, it hasn't grown past 1% (i.e 0% growth) for the past freaking 24 months. Pretty damning for the fastest growing OS in the planet.

      Zeitgiest shows only one fastest growing OS, i.e Windows XP

      As long as there are clueless idiots who would believe anything Linux zealots say, "Linux is growing marketshare in desktop"

      • I'd say thats true to some degree. But even Google's stats aren't right... they rely on the browser info provided by the browser itself, not what it really is.

        For example, I'm using konq, and I have it set to identify itself as IE 5.5 on Windows 2000. So I *know* I'm inflating the Win2K and IE 5.5 figures myself.

        In fact, half of the techs in my office use linux, and the other half use Opera on Win2K... but everyone identifies themselves as IE, just to get around stupid browser sniffers.

        Try getting to s

        • In fact, half of the techs in my office use linux, and the other half use Opera on Win2K... but everyone identifies themselves as IE, just to get around stupid browser sniffers.

          Sounds like it's time to make the spoofing relative to the site or the page. Broadcast a reliable presence indicator for Linux for as many sites as possible, but if a site is known to be broken, then spoof. In fact, if your browser followed up every spoof with a second invisible request with a browser named "Linux browser using

  • Linux announcements from big companies... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by L0stb0Y ( 108220 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:35PM (#5530423) Journal
    Do you see announcements from heavy hitters (like Dell, IBM, etc) helping sway more 'desktop users' to switching to Linux?
    • The truth of the matter is, linux users these days install it themselves. even if i recieved a preinstalled linux box, i would reinstall, repartition, etc. Plus everyone likes a different distro.

      I will admit for used machines I am a bit more lax...I booted into a box i was given once with a floppy and changed the password for root, and kept running the Mandrake 5.1 install it had because he had done a beautiful job tweaking his samba settings. If they offered such services as good service tweaking etc.

  • Your Bias (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:36PM (#5530435) Homepage Journal
    Obviously you are biased to Linux. My question is do you use Windows? Honestly, I have a hard time believing statistics from a one sided person. So if you use Windows as much as Linux and see the pluses to both operating systems, then I'm more likely to take what you say seriously.
    • Oh man, FK! You broke the cardinal /. rule: never, ever take M$'s side against the almighty Linus and Linux!

      Ok, seriously... modded FK down for asking an honest question? What the hell?

  • Ask Nicholas Petreley About Linux Usage Statistics (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:37PM (#5530443)
    Ok, I'll bite:

    Nicholas,

    What about Linux usage statistics?

  • Defining Usage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Giant Ape Skeleton ( 638834 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:38PM (#5530449) Homepage
    What, in your opinion is the most meaningful measurement of usage?

    Do you place any credibilty in the tendency for certain analysts to derive things like a "mindshare index" from arguably disparate sources?

  • Distros and numbers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by farrellj ( 563 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:39PM (#5530452) Homepage Journal
    Part of the problem in counting the number of Linux desktops/servers/etc. is that anyone can get it from any of a million different places (friends, ftp, subscriptions, etc.), but the industry tends only to count sales. I know for a fact that every CD I have of Linux I have installed it on at least 10 other systems...some are upgrades, others are new users, and still others moving over from another distro.

    And this leads to the other problem...what are the *real* usage stats on distros? It's hard to tell. From talking to people, a lot of people use Slackware and Debian for servers, Red Hat, Suse and Mandrake for desktops...but how can we really count who is using what?

    ttyl
    Farrell

    • Re:Distros and numbers (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mmol_6453 ( 231450 ) <short.circuit@OP ... et.com minus bsd> on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:56PM (#5530601) Homepage Journal
      With a slashdot poll? :)

      A series of polls,
      "I use Debian for a..."
      * Server
      * Desktop
      * Both
      * Raytracer of a CowboyNeal model

      "I use Red Hat for a..."
      * Server
      * Desktop
      * Both
      * Cowboyowulf cluster

      "I use Slackware for a..."
      * Server
      * Desktop
      * Both
      * CowboyNeal Dissection Model ...

      (And if someone mods me "Interesting", I'll shoot myself.) ...

      • Re:Distros and numbers (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        (And if someone mods me "Interesting", I'll shoot myself.) ...

        Thing is though, how are you going to shoot yourself twice?

        Or maybe this is one of those ". . . and I bet you won't read this out. . " radio/newspaper letters.

        I think I'll give a try, if someone mods this as "Insightful" I'll eat this small puppy, deliciously garnished with a sprig of parsley and a squeeze of lemon.
      • And if someone mods me "Interesting", I'll shoot myself.

        score, +5, interesting. you know what to do. :-)
      • MODERATORS!

        If you mod this post "Funny +1" I'll shoot myself, too!
      • "(And if someone mods me "Interesting", I'll shoot myself.) ..."

        It's not that moderators can be bribed that's so disturbing, it's that with which they can be bribed.

    • Agreed. Our university mirrors RedHat and anyone else you ask them to. So who knows how many people are using RH here unless you looked at the server logs on the U's server. Otherwise, the whole U would only get counted once as one download.

    • Linux counter (Score:2, Informative)

      by rastos1 ( 601318 )
      > ..but how can we really count who is using what?

      By registering on Linux counter [li.org]?

  • So that 40% number... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:41PM (#5530476)
    ...the one where 40% of developers are writing mainly to Linux. Where does that stat come from, and what does "developers" mean? It sounds really nice, but if it were true I as a Linux user would expect to see a lot more apps. Does it come from Sourceforge numbers? Does it come from a poll at a website; maybe a Slashdot, Kuro5hin or Newsforge poll? Is it of *all* developers, or of *paid* developers, or of developers of open-source developers or in-house developers or developers of commercial software? Does it include platform-agnostic developers (ie. Java/ perl/ ASP/ PHP/ .NET)? If so, which side does it put them on? Also, what is the error margin of the poll?

    I know a bit about statistics, and more about Linux, and something smells fishy. Linux is good, so I figure the numbers are bad.

  • Slightly offtopic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Telastyn ( 206146 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:42PM (#5530481)
    What stocks do you own?

  • Bias (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pfankus ( 535004 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:42PM (#5530484) Homepage
    Do you feel obvious relationship to and advocacy of Linux skew any statistics that you would release or predict?

    Does this bias (and it would be difficult to deny that it's apparent) affect how we as a community and the less Linux-savvy view these numbers?

  • I have ADD, so... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:44PM (#5530501) Homepage Journal
    If you could say in two sentences why I should use Linux instead of Windows or MacOS or anything else for that matter, what would you say?
    • I just ran across this when I googled. Might be of interest, Joe: http://www.attentiondeficitdisorder.ws/links/techn ology.html BTW: I found out after 48 years that I have ADD, and I'm working as an coountant. Go figure! or design a database, or plan a wooden ship or wite a song . . .

  • A question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RighteousFunby ( 649763 )
    Do you think that Linux will ever overtake MS and Apple on the desktop? If so, why and how? If not, again why?

  • Dear Nicholas Petreley (Score:5, Funny)

    by slashuzer ( 580287 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:47PM (#5530526) Homepage
    You might be unaware of this fact, but the words Usage Statistics, IDC, study, etc trigger some deep emotions in the slashdot community.

    So can you tell me, Is BSD dying?

  • Public Awareness of Licensing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smitty45 ( 657682 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:48PM (#5530531)
    How much do you think that Linux usage statistics reflect the public's understanding of the licensing issues involved with Open Source (and Free) software ?

  • what will drive adoption among developers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:51PM (#5530554) Homepage Journal
    Several obvious possibilities come to mind:

    1. lower cost alternatives to proprietary tools
    2. momentum from Perl, Python and PHP being developed first on *nix
    3. inherent advantages such as stability and source code availability
    4. capability to fine tune services such as email, web, etc.

    With all these advantages, what do you identify to be the driving, unifying principle behind desktop Linux adoption by developers?

  • Linux Usage Growth (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dios ( 83038 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:54PM (#5530584) Homepage
    Ok, this statement was thrown in my face a while back.


    Its easy to go from 1 to 2 users or 2 to 4 and claim a fantastic growth rate, but what constitutes that magic number of users before its truly a desktop operating system being used daily by enough of a mass to catch the attention of large software development firms that will create/port applications to linux?


    Is growth rate in terms of number of desktops conquered (eg growth rate of 1.5 million desktops a year) a better measuring stick than doubled/tripled/whatever the number of users in X years. What, in your opinion, is a good measuring tool in determining the growth rate/acceptance of linux in the market?

  • Even on Intel, Linux outperforms Windows....The irony here is that Windows gets an unfair market-share boost because it is inferior to Linux and requires more installations to do the same work.

    Can he provide references to the studies which show that "Linux outperforms windows" and show any corroborating evidence of real-world installations where a higher volume of Windows systems were actually deployed? I don't live in either the Windows or Linux camps - each has it uses - but I have to say that I consid

    • Not to answer for him but, here's one for file and printer sharing [itweek.co.uk]. There are also a number of TPC benchmarks that show Linux [tpc.org] outperforms MS W2K [tpc.org] running Oracle on identical platforms.

      That said, I'd like to second your point that broad statements like "outperforms" should always be in the context of "at what". It's like me saying "I'm faster than George" ... it just doesn't mean anything when it's out of context like that.
  • Seriously, if everyone is using OO, Apache, Evolution, etc, does it really matter whether it's on Linux, *BSD, OSX or OpenBeOS? I'd even include Windows into that category until Microsoft basically makes supporting OSS on Windows next to impossible which I don't foresee.

  • At what point will Linux reach critical mass? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:57PM (#5530611) Homepage Journal
    At what level of penetration (% install base share) will Linux reach critical mass on the desktop? It's much less relevant from a server perspective since it appears that Linux already has reached critical mass on that front. Should we assume that when Linux supplants Apple as the number two platform (although this has already happened from what I have seen, nobody is stating it yet in the mass media), that we will see a proliferation of commercial Linux offerings and (more importantly) better OEM hardware support?
    • Please define critical mass on the desktop.

      People are already using it and developing for it.
      Is that not critical mass already?
    • That is a very good question you ask.
      Also due to the point that you define that there *is* a point where critical mass will boost the Linux Desktop usage. For standard and Office usage the Linux Desktop has effectively reached parrity with 'doze about a year ago (with the arival of acceptable browsing in Netscape 6.1) and since then everyone with a PC I've met has said they'll ditch M$ as soon as official support for Win2K ceases. Even Web Editors and other folks you'd usually supect to really not care. Ger

  • Why not looking at Petreley's sources? (Score:3, Informative)

    by rpiquepa ( 644694 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:59PM (#5530629) Homepage
    I commented about this article two days ago here [weblogs.com]. In it, you could find references to the Evans Data Corporation (EDC) he based his story. Check Primary OS Prior to Mainly Targeting Linux OS [evansdata.com] or How Important Are 64-Bit Architectures? [evansdata.com] pages before arguing about Nicholas Petreley's article.

  • Pre-Installed Linux for the Desktop (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lcsjk ( 143581 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:59PM (#5530640)
    People expect to get "Windows" when they purchase a new computer at "Walmart" or other major outlet. Most people want to "buy it, plug it in and use it", ie., pre-installed OS. Only a few people know the value of Linux vs Windows. Do any of the statistics show the effect of advertising and pre-installed Os on market share and usage trends?

  • IDC credibility (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:00PM (#5530643) Homepage
    IDC is always publishing those studies about future market share, but where are the studies comparing past IDC predictions with the actuals?

    We can't even get solid Internet traffic statistics. Look at the mess Worldcom's inflated traffic numbers caused.

  • As the saying goes... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rusty spoon ( 564695 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:01PM (#5530652) Homepage
    There's lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    How do you reconcile the "fact" that everyone has statistics to show what they want, with the fact that you think yours are better?

  • WTF? (Score:2)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 )
    Isn't there only one question, and hasn't Roblimo already asked it?

  • Who is going to lead the way? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blitzrage ( 185758 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:04PM (#5530686) Homepage
    If you feel that linux on the desktop is going to double by 2004, how do you figure we are going to get there? Who is going to lead the way and what is going to become the turning point that linux becomes a usable desktop for the majority of users? I love linux, its configurability and the support that is available on the web, but I would never install linux on my grandmothers computer at home. Do you figure that linux should just pick a default window manager now and build upon that to allow a seamless interface from those coming from Windows XP to linux?

    • Re:Who is going to lead the way? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by oconnorcjo ( 242077 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @04:11PM (#5531242) Journal
      If you feel that linux on the desktop is going to double by 2004, how do you figure we are going to get there? Who is going to lead the way and what is going to become the turning point that linux becomes a usable desktop for the majority of users?

      Google says here [google.com] that Linux only accounts for 1% of search hits on google. Anyone doing searches on the internet is ,by my definintion, a "Desktop User" and this is probably the most impartial measurment of Linux usage one can get. So for Linux to double to 2% is not that special. "grandmothers" will probably not be a large chunk of that 2%.

      Yeah - I know... this is an interview question thingy but I could not help commenting.

      • I don't trust that. Many linux users have faked their browser id string, normally to claim they are running ie on windows so various websites won't send them to microsoft for the latest browser. Unfortunatly so long as we keep faking our id, websites won't see the demand for other browsers so they won't bother checking for them meaning we have to fake them even longer...

      • Google says here [google.com] that Linux only accounts for 1% of search hits on google. Anyone doing searches on the internet is ,by my definintion, a "Desktop User" and this is probably the most impartial measurment of Linux usage one can get. So for Linux to double to 2% is not that special. "grandmothers" will probably not be a large chunk of that 2%.

        But what's the problem here? It's 1 percent. Let's repeat that. Linux on the desktop is 1 percent. That's amazing. I'm... wow, it's incredible. Appare

      • I've wondered about that too. But Google is counting "web desktops", not desktops more generally. Most of the momentum in Linux desktop growth is I think coming from corporates starting to move over (see the SuSE interview, where the guy said they were getting one 1000+ seat company enquiry a day), and (outside the IT industry) most employees don't do much web surfing at work.

        Danny.

  • Its said that usage will double, but how do the stats breakdown? Are we looking 200% increase across all markets or just the server market? Also how does the stats relate to other operating systems? Is the market share being taken away from just Microsoft, or more likely from all blue chip (SUN, HP, IBM...) *NIX companies

    Rus
  • In the interview with Roblimo, Holger Dyroff said: "Staples and Office Depot weren't profitable channels for Linux and you'll not see it there."

    Can this really be said this early in the game? How do you judge which sales channels are the most profitable, both now and in the long run as people are just starting to become more and more aware of a Linux alternative?
  • The only handicap's that really afflict the Linux desktop are lack of applications (read games) and lack of exposure.

    We just set up a whole business with linux desktops, and we get all these ridiculous questions. People think it's somehow massively different from windows. The user interface is all the same. You define the backend stuff so they don't have to worry about it (i.e. mount points, etc.) and any competent user can figure out the rest.

    The problem comes in with all the...shall we say...competency
    • The problem comes in with all the...shall we say...competency challenged users, who latch on to the minor cosmetic differences, and the unfamiliar mail application/internet browser and freak out.

      Simple solution ... set THAT user's machine up with fvwm95, evolution and Mozilla with the IE theme installed!

      And people try to say highly configurable user interfaces are overkill ... BAH!

  • I'll ask again. Bias (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:16PM (#5530779) Homepage Journal
    I already asked this [slashdot.org], but will try again, seeing as some elitist moderators deemed it as flamebait.

    We all read stats on "Microsoft funded research", and we all read stats from Linux-only users. My question is do you use Windows (we already know you are an avid Linux fan)?
    I'd be more interested in reading statistics from a truely unbiased person that uses both Windows and Linux instead of strictly Linux. It would give the statistic more substance.
    • I'd be more interested in reading statistics from a truely unbiased person that uses both Windows and Linux instead of strictly Linux. It would give the statistic more substance.

      Just because a person no longer uses a product, it does not mean that they are not impartial.

      Example:

      I used to use DOS, OS/2, Windows (all flavors), and Linux at one time or another in my life. In 1992-93 I would argue the merits of OS/2 over DOS (despite dropping the use of DOS long before then).

      Now you may think I was "b

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:16PM (#5530784)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The difficulties of information gathering are well known in this area. I for one installed from a distro given away on a magazine cover; I doubt I'm counted in anybody'd list.

    Do you think it will ever be possible to come up with meaningful information on what people are actually using, or are we just shouting into the wind?

  • Differences (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:17PM (#5530795) Homepage
    What is the difference between you and the people who are demonized and flamed to no end because they quote seemingly unreliable and baseless statistics to support the idea that Windows is doing well in the market place? That Windows is better than Linux as a server OS?

    It seems to me that for the past four or five years I've been seeing "statistics" and "studies" to the tune of "Linux is enterprise-ready" and "Linux will overtake the desktop" and "Linux rulez". What's different today?

  • Biggest stumbling block? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nlinecomputers ( 602059 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:22PM (#5530839)
    What in your opinion is the biggest stumbling block for wide spread acceptance of Linux in desktop uses?

    Lack of software, poor GUI design, lack of a single common GUI, hard to buy a computer with out Microsoft software preinstalled, "it is free so it can't be good" misconceptions, or something else?

  • Who cares?!?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:35PM (#5530962) Journal
    I don't get this -- a relatively flamebait-ish writer from a relatively flamebait-ish Linux publication writes an article claiming that Linux desktop share must be high because of a survey focused entirely on developers, and because, well, you can't prove it's NOT! and we're lining up to ask him detailed questions about his analysis?

    Look, the Google numbers speak for themselves. If people want to tell themselves that >90% of Linux desktop users are faking their browser ID strings, then bless 'em.

  • Statsitcal lie (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <shadow.wrought@g ... minus herbivore> on Monday March 17, 2003 @03:42PM (#5531029) Homepage Journal
    We all know that 42.78% of all statstics are made up, and that another 63.58% of statistics are wrong. Considering that the remaining 78.92% of statistics are "wildly inaccurate", I am wondering if you have contemplated using the Slashdot Poll as a way of reaching truly unbiased results?

    As a follow-up question, does your reasarch support the CowboyNeal Theory that links "insensitive clods" with M$ desktops?

  • How do we know what the market penetration is? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bheerssen ( 534014 ) <bheerssen@gmail.com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @04:04PM (#5531173)
    I mean, really.

    What are the primary means of assessing Linux on the Desktop usage statistics, and how reliable are these methods? Also, what types of methods are used to offset each method's failings?

    There are websites [li.org] that track such statistics. In your opinion, how reliable are these sites in general?
  • I would be extremely skeptical of the Linux useage statistics if I'd ever have to consider it. In my circle of friends and family, Linux gets used on and off depending on the situation. Some friends are running or ran at some time, Linux webservers, fileservers etc. I am currently using Win98 on desktop computers at home, while two servers are Redhat and SuSE. In history Ive used Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD on the servers and tried Linux on some of the desktops for some time, even BeOS and FreeBSD.

    So at an

  • Enterprise vs. retail developers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @05:08PM (#5531719)
    Nicholas, given that the vast, vast majority of developers write software for internal corporate use and B2B applications, what possible significance can your 40% number have for the consumer desktop? Windows dominated the consumer desktop market before it penetrated a corporate market dominated by Unix, VMS, OS/360, etc., not the other way around. No one seriously disputes the rapid growth of Linux in the enterprise, but it seems to me that the corporate server market -- even the corporate desktop market -- has very little influence on what my grandmother or my daughter use on their desktops.

  • Games? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dolson ( 634094 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @05:50PM (#5532102) Homepage Journal
    Obviously games isn't factored into the usage equation, am I right?

    Take the only known stats, and look them over. Compare them to Windows...

    Rune: 0.37%, if that, were Linux sales.
    UT2003: less than 1% of people to ever play online were in Linux

    And so on...

    Most people know that Linux is used extensively on the server side of things, but how is Linux doing on the desktop side? And more specifically, games?

  • So statistics are notoriously unreliable for Linux installations since the licensing often doesn't restrict unlimited reproduction nor require registration with a counting authority.

    Will someone find it important enough to fund a real Linux deployment census? Will they release that information publicly (either MS or Sun might not)?

    Won't anecdotal evidence continue to play the larger role in the success of Linux than measured deployment levels? (Someone said that a major switch by a Fortune 500 company w

    • "I agree with the analogy to the groundswell effect that brought the IBM PC into the corporate world in the early 1980s against the IT establishment , who were the last to climb on board in most cases."

      Well, I think the opposition of the IT establishment to early PC use is somewhat exaggerated. In the early days the PC was replacing typewriters not corporate computers and most IT departments didn't offer any competing services such as word processing.

      Of course a lot of the growth came from small companies

  • Problems with the survey (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Yankovic ( 97540 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @07:37PM (#5532935)
    Hi--

    I actually have a bit of a problem with the survey. From where did they recruity the sources? To quote from the article:

    Representative Samples
    When conducting demand side primary research it becomes important to recruit the participants (or samples) from sources that are as unbiased as possible. During the five years that EDC has been recruiting developers to participate in surveys this ideal has continuously been foremost in our efforts. Consequently, though we have used over 100 different individual sources for recruiting, the following principles have always been and will always be applied:

    No vendor lists have ever been used in EDC subscription surveys and none have ever been added to the panel
    No platform specific lists have ever been used in any EDC general subscription surveys and none have ever been added to the general panel*
    No language specific lists have ever been used in any EDC subscriptions surveys and none have ever been added to the panel
    In this way we provide the most eclectic and unbiased sample available anywhere. With thousands of developers chosen in a deliberately unbiased way from a wide variety of neutral lists, our data truly provides in-depth looks at representative samples of the developer population.

    *Note: our Linux Development survey does use lists targeted for the Linux platform, however all developers recruited for that survey are kept in a separate database and are not used in any surveys other than Linux specific ones.

    Clearly, it says that they use Linux specific developer lists, which indicates that this is not the broader community at all, but a very specific set of Linux developers (of the size and scope of which we have no idea). My question is this: Given how much the /. community pokes holes in studies like this when they come out of Windows, shouldn't the /. community hold data to higher standards, even if it does support their cause?

  • What I have seen during my job hunt... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lanner ( 107308 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @08:56PM (#5533465)

    I am located in Orlando Florida and have been looking for work over the last six months or so. I have been checking job ads within the Titusville, Melbourne, Orlando, and Tampa metro areas. This excludes Miami and Jacksonville metros.

    I have seen a few ads requesting GNU/Linux experience. Only one or two mentioned FreeBSD, which is a real shame. A lot request Solaris, AIX, and HPUX. By far, the most significant requests are for Microsoft systems administrators though (75% or greater) You have to consider that this is not Silicon Valley over here. There are a lot of government contractors, call centers, real estate business, health care, and banking. Almost all of the companies that requested GNU/Linux experience were small or had been in business for less than 20 years.

    I would say that out of the last 100 unique job posts that I have seen, 10 have requested GNU/Linux experience. One even requested that you had to submit your resume in Open Office format, which I think is a great way to weed out some of the fools.

    One ad requested Debian. The rest were Red Hat. I do not recall requests for any other distributions.

    It is of worthy note that Largo Florida is part of the Tampa metro area. You may remember some stories on Slashdot about how the local government of Largo uses GNU/Linux. And yes, I have seen several requests for GNU/Linux over in the Tampa metro area. A few in Orlando, and few to none in Titusville and Melbourne.

    Hi to anyone in Orlando who go to hear John Hall speak about a week ago! I was there, and was the one that stole the last chocolate cookie! Ha ha!
  • Be wary of any article containing the phrase "but the ... data confirms one of my pet theories". End of story.

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