Sebastian Smith wrote:
Are we counting users, or installations? How do LiveCDs fit into the
puzzle? Do embedded devices running Linux count? How about UML or Xen?
This is a complicated problem. I'm one user, but have around 20 devices
(computers, pda, and embedded devices) running Linux. On the other
hand, if you have a Linux kiosk -- say... an ATM -- it may have
thousands of users. Or, you may have a cluster with thousands of
users. By counting installations or users it is clearly easy to
underestimate the total number using Linux. Furthermore, how do LiveCDs
fit into this puzzle?! I just can't grasp that.
- Sebastian
On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Mark C. Ballew wrote:
Jeff,
Linux counter sends an email out to the address you listed every year
and asks that you login to update your information. If you don't, you
get "uncounted".
Mark
On Sep 4, 2005, at 5:50 PM, Jeff Shippen wrote:
There's really no 100% accurate way to tell how many users of what
there are. Here's an intersting site set up to count how many people
use linux and how many machines they use it on.
http://counter.li.org/
Unfortunately, you must go add yourself manually, and then, I do not
know if there is a way to remove your self should you make any
changes for any reason.
This is an interesting topic anyway... can anyone think of a way to
effeciently count operating systems? Maybe we can set up a survey
website, to at least get a general idea. A survey that can take
place
each year for the full year... Here's a visual of the idea, with my
count inside. http://jeffshippen.homelinux.com/test/OSsurvey/ (open
office or html)
I'm starting to think it should be a more simple survey, to include
only option for a variant, such as
<windows>
<mac>
<unix>
Maybe there can be a unified way the Linux distros can implement a
count across the net, to count both distro and total linuxes - again
these numbers are prone to be higher than real uses - because, i for
example, like to download this linux and that linux just for a
temporary trial, and then i go back to my favorite.
I think we, as a LUG group, can put some ideas together and possibly
come up with an effecient count method, weather it's for only Linux
or includes all OSes.
Jeff
Quoting Bill Roddy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
This may seem like a silly or irrelevant question, but how do we
KNOW
how many people are using Linux?
I'm sure it's relatively easy to know how many people are using
Windows,
or Apple, by tracking sales figures. But what figures do the
pundits use
to track Linux users, when they compare this system to others?
This question came to mind when I learned that Fermilabs, CERN in
Switzerland, and a number of other huge research facilities, are
using
Linux, but the hundreds and hundreds of desktops and servers at
each
facility are probably not being counted, because they run a
non-proprietary version of Linux they have built from source
themselves.
Like I said, it's a silly question, but the alleged answer that
some
"experts" offer either comes out of thin air, or there is a way.
Could
it be that there are significantly more Linux users that anyone
imagines?
Bill
--
Web site: http://life-and-times.net
Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/~williamroddy
AIM: errolofquirm
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I agree with you, Mark.
For that reason, has anyone ever proposed challenging Microsoft data
(and perhaps, even some Linux companies' data) as to the number of users
of Linux? It's often used as an argument against the use of Linux: no on
else uses it. It's a method of thinking that I abhor, because it's based
on an unprovable assumption and it's not logical to stay that minorities
of anything are not good.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
When news reports contend that 90 percent of the computers in the world
are Windows computers, would the appropriate way to respond to these
articles be, 'Show us your data. What is your source?' Otherwise, the PR
machines and spin doctors of Microsoft and Windows-related products are
able to convince themselves that there is "no market for Linux,"
something I've seen countless times. I mean, do they know that my
brother now has Linux on his machine and uses it, because it I installed
it, even though it originated as a Windows laptop? That some of the
kids on the block have Linux on their machines because I gave them
disks? And I'm sure many of you have many more such stories than I.
What about the machines at your jobs, labs, and universities? Are they
counted?
It would be my humble, albeit, confrontational belief that we (RLUG, or
certain individuals within it) we begin to challenges the U.S.-held
belief that 90 percent of the computers in the world are run with Windows.
GNU/Linux and BSD are good things and they shouldn't be minimized
because of economic or political reasons, because they are, first and
foremost, neither of those things.
The fact is, there are no numbers to support how many Linux users there
are. None.
Perhaps we should borrow from Shakespeare's Hamlet,
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
And say, instead,
"There are far more Linux installations in heaven and earth, Microsoft,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Heaven, too? Yes. Because I don't think they're counting some of the new
Linux installation used by NASA, either.
Bill
--
Web site: http://life-and-times.net
Blog: http://www.life-and-times.net/features/blog.html
AIM: errolofquirm
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