I am cross-posting from ilugd. Attaching LL's reply giving the actual
context, at the end.
Recently I overheard a conversation about "How many Linux users there are
in India". The definition being used seemed to be : anyone using a linux
desktop.
The persons talking included some who have been using Linux even before
SCO wrote it :) so i had (have) to tread carefully. Some of the points
raised were:
- What about servers ?
- if you have a departmental server catering to 1000 employees, do you
count zero.
- if your coders telnet/ssh from a Win machine, do they get counted or
not ?
- if I move my company over to Linux (forcefully), do you count these
sufferers as linuxen ?
- what if these folk dont even know they're using Linux ? Are they
*still* counted ?
- my grandpa/wife/kid uses my Linux machine to browse, and hasnt heard
of Linux
- you just started a cybercafe and installed linux because it you heard
its free and has a browser
- Windows decides to use Linux as the underlying OS - do 5 million
suckers become Linux users automatically
- Here's a provocative one from me personally : if you use Linux only to
use OO and Evolution are you a Linux user ? I mean you havent a clue
about the shell or command line...
Having grown up on the CLI, its hard to think of Evolution users
or OO users as Linux users. Maybe i cant explain it properly, maybe its
just a personal thing - if you cant grep/awk/sed/tr/vi,
if Linux is just a free Windows for you, what Linux user are you ?
I thought about it a bit while drinking err driving back, and here are
my quick thoughts:
- the definition depends on what you need the data for (so obvious)
For ME, a Linux user is probably someone who's favorite/preferred OS is
Linux.
I thus dont count:
- persons forced to use it
- persons who dont know they are using it
- persons who use it only becos its free and they would use Windows if
that were free
None of these folk would stand up for Linux, so I dont count them.
Look forward to some thoughts ...
--
no flames please,
rahul
LinuxLingam's reply:
okay, the context of this thread: dq reported that in the previous
month, the installed base of pcs in india touched 10 million. (1 crore)
pcs.
that makes it 1 pc for every 100 indian on the sub-continent.
that's very poor diffusion of pc in india.
[no, i hate using the word 'pc penetration' in india, as i find it a bit
offensive]
okay, so a group of us started wondering at the ilug-d meet, what's the
big deal about IT in india, with that extraordinarily low pc stats in
india. i mean, we've got more than 30 million cell users in india. IMHO,
the cellphone is a computing device too. we also started wondering how
many PC-users are there in india. through various "highly educated"
guesses ;-) over delicious glasses of chai, we arrived at the precisely
random figure of 100 million pc users (10 crores). it so conveniently
fits into "one in every ten indian is a pc user." your mileage will vary
tremendously.
anyways, the real question we pondered on: for all the hype, how many
linux-users could there be in india. if you add the number of user
groups and each's membership, you come to a figure so low i'd rather not
mention it.
and rahul takes on the gauntlet: he wants to know how do you define a
linux user? he wants to know whether you count a windows user who
browses the net/lan thru a linux pc, as a linux user? and so on. by
which time, i was ready to escape into the mind-numbing movie-hall....
.... let's try to get to our definition of a
linux user, and to guestimates of linux users in india.
my takes: anyone who uses run-level 5 *only* and with OO and evolution
only, on a dual-boot pc, *is* a linux user for me.
anybody who has a linux installed on the desktop or laptop for their
individual use (whether at home or office) is a linux user.
but someone who uses a linux server from a windoze desktop, is *not* a
linux user. in this case, the user is not directly interacting with
linux. it is set up to handle this without intervention from this
windoze user. okay, what's your take.
i *think* the total number of linux users in india could not be more
than 20 lakh. why? because linux has usually 2% market share, and this
is 2% of the 10 million pcs in india. (10 million=1 crore. 20 lakh = 2
million).
i'm also sure this figure is off by +- 90%
[grin]
LL
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