On Tue, 2004-04-06 at 16:26, Rahul Kumar wrote:
Recently I overheard a conversation about How many Linux users there are
in India.
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 server, as a linux user? and so on. by
which time, i was ready to escape into the mind-numbing movie-hall
please, everyone, do respond to rahul's stupendous email with your
thoughts. rahul, would be nice if you could post your email to the
linux-india mailing list too. 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]
what do you say?
:-)
LL
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