On Sep 6, 2005, at 11:32 AM, Bill Roddy wrote:
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.
I wouldn't dispute that most desktop machines and desktop users have
some variant of a Microsoft operating system on it. Anyone on the
Internet has 'used' Linux in some form of another, since Linux, or
other open source variants, are popular for servers and have been
since the dot-com days.
Linux is typically l limited to labs in the computer science or
research part of universities from what I've seen first hand. At
least at UNR, the vast majority of lab workstations are running a
Microsoft OS. A smaller share run OS X, and so that leaves Linux for
more speciality applications. This is more of a case of the school
doing what it has always done: No one has ever gotten fired for
buying Microsoft. I think that we are seeing a shift toward more
Linux in the academic lab. I also think we'll see more Linux in
government, as you can note with the many stories out on the wire
about entire governments switching.
To step on my soap box: Governments, academia, researchers, and
individual should use Linux because:
1) The more people use it, the more problems we can fix
2) It is available at no cost
3) It is freely modifiable
4) It promotes the freedom to use and learn
I liken Linux and open source to a library: Millions of pages of
reading are available to those who want to learn, study, and use the
knowledge of others.
Mark
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