[snip] Seriously, Linux is run by more than a > million people world wide for applications ranging > from Rocket launches to making simulations for nuclear > devices - no one uses windows there. You still > unconvinced? :-) > > Cheers! > viksit >
that set me thinking. anyone has figures/pointers, to what could be the population of gnulinux users in the world? my working definition of a gnulinux user: 1) end-user desktop user, whether at runlevel 3 or runlevel 5, 2) whether with gnulinux installed on local hardisk or via diskless terminals, 3) whether with root access or just an account which is used for 'mainstream personal computing (email, surfing, wordprocessing, etc)' or even if for a repetitive job like transaction-entry such as at a bpo. 4) whether an active user or an occassional user who boots into and uses gnulinux atleast once a month for a minimum of 15 minutes. this whether on a dual-boot or even a live cd. 5) does not include 'users' who would use gnulinux running on an atm as they don't have a uid. 6) would include users who surf the internet using gnulinux at a cybercafe. maybe they are logged in as guest, or the cyber-owner gives them an account, but they are using the browser and possibly other applications on a gnulinux pc, hence they count in my perception. 7) does not include endusers of embedded devices such as consumer electronics, onboard entertainment video such as on planes, as gnulinux is perhaps invisible to them, or they do not even know that this is running on it. 8) would include endusers of embedded devices such as cellphones and pdas, as they have to directly interact and know how to use gnulinux. 9) would include users who run gnulinux over another os, through emulation software-layers such as softPC. [the linux kernel is being used] 10) if gnulinux is used on a server, which is accessed by windows-endusers transparantly, these endusers are not counted. 11) any language interface would do. so we can count those millions of users sun microsystems are inculcating in china.... 12) any desktop gnulinux distro, whether community-versions or commercial. [linux kernel is being used by an end-user....] whew! what a task to define a gnulinux end-user. strange no one ever asks that question for a windows or a mac user. shows the complexity and flexibility of gnulinux. if you wish, you could improve my working definition of a gnulinux user. however, please try to keep it to the spirit and focus of what i have in mind. what do you think are the numbers of such users? worldwide? in india? fyi, we have about 10 million pcs in india. i forget how many pcs we have in the world. :-) LL _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
