Linux 10% Market Share

[GilGib]

According to O'Rielly Community Linux has about 10% of the Market.
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/09...he-1-myth.html

[GreyGeek]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

Even though Windows TE's, fanbois and pseudo FOSS advocates jump into the comments section in an attempt to rehabilitate the myth. But, Caitlyn Martin does an EXCELLENT job of refuting all of them. They end up putting their fingers in their ears and shouting "na na na na na na 1% na na na".

[zlow]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

Even though Windows TE's, fanbois and pseudo FOSS advocates jump into the comments section in an attempt to rehabilitate the myth. But, Caitlyn Martin does an EXCELLENT job of refuting all of them. They end up putting their fingers in their ears and shouting "na na na na na na 1% na na na".

I seem to have read the opposite in the comments. Caitlyn seems to take a position of "I am right, you are wrong and I'm not going to discuss it with you, so deal with it.". None of her links actually validate any of her opinions, and her comments show a level of arrogance that I have never seen in her articles before.

There are a lot of really good counter arguments that she simply refuses to acknowledge.

It would be fantastic if Linux desktop marketshare were to reach 10%, but it is just fantasy to think that it is right now. We are probably closer to 2% realistically. Hopefully someday soon though.

Zonker provides a much more realistic analysis: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/66076

Zonker is a long time OSS advocate, and very well respected in the industry.

I take issue with your assertion that anyone that disagrees with her opinion is a Windows TE, fanboi, or "pseudo FOSS" person.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

As usual, we agree to disagree.

Reading ALL the comments, IMO, Caitlyn Martin does an EXCELLENT job refuting the 1% fanbois. She and Zonker exchanged POVs on each others articles. They agreed to disagree, just like us.

I made a comment on Zonker's article but it stripped my URLs out. Here it is anyway:

Joe, in an article THREE YEARS ago you sited a Wikipedia article which put the Linux desktop market share at 1%. That figure was pulled from a NetApplications press release. NetApplications sells rebranded Windows executables and has a horse in the race. Subsequently, CDNET, another vendor with a horse in the race because they are dependent on MS ad revenue to make payroll, hid behind a proxy to release yet another web metric report supporting the 1% claim.

Yet, even a casual search reveals reports of Linux being at 3.2% in 2003 and excepted to hit 6% in 2007. Then, as you are well aware, Ballmer presented a graphic in Feb or 2009 in which he presents the Linux desktop market share at 10+%, and that is just in America. In other countries another graphic reports it at 24%.

One has to ask, in light of the VISTA debacle over the last three years, and Win7's lack of real uptake -- forced on users because of pre-installations -- why that percentage has not changed? A static 1% for three years is unreal and unnatural, unless it is being constantly recycled. A computer generation is three years. In the world of computers statistics grow and they shrink, but rarely do they remain constant. That 1% figure is the result of constant recycling by organizations with horses in the race. Most web sites require donations to keep afloat.

StatCounters was not forthright about their financial sponsor, CDNET. NetApplications didn't reveal that they were rebranders of Microsoft based applications. With some investigation, or inside information, I suspect that one could establish that several of the other websites whose statistics are too similar to the 1% myth to be true, have MS money to account for their continued existence.

And, I noticed that even you lost your enthusiasm for the success of the Linux desktop after your move to the PR manager of openSUSE, and later to the Gnome project. Next I suspect you'll tell me that making Microsoft's API the default on the Linux desktop is a good thing.

Indicative of these web based statistics is that they are subject to instant manipulation, and are bought and sold. Below I reference some MS email from the Combs trial where they said that if IDC didn't supply the "figures they need" they'll find someone who will? That is what NetApplications did to Apple's market share a year ago this August -- they cut it in half over night! Where did that 5% go? Why to Windows, of course, which rose 6%! Did you notice a drastic 50% drop in Apple sales during the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" commercials? Neither did I. The question arises as to WHY they did they do it? The answer: follow the money.

So, despite historical evidence to the contrary, and claims by Ballmer himself, the fact that IF the Linux desktop market share did shrink from 6% to 1% in a couple years one would be hard pressed to explain why DELL would even waste tune entertaining the idea of offering Linux on 3% of their laptops and 6% of their servers, let alone actually doing it.

The best debunker of Linux myths is Microsoft itself. The Combs vs Microsoft trial made public many internal emails which give Jim Achin's & Microsoft's view of Linux. Beez recounts a few excerpts, taken from these:
px07168.pdf
px07175.pdf

IF reading those emails don't convince you, and you think Ballmer is a liar, then perhaps the Combs-9445.pdf might shake your confidence in Microsoft's public veracity: the "Linux Heat Map", covering changes in Linux adoption percentages between August and October of 2003, and changes in OSS legislation in the various countries listed. In the US, in 2003, the MidMarket had Linux as the primary OS on 1% of the computers. In France it was 3.2%, in Russia 3.8% and in Brazil 3.4%. Equally important is the percent of those who intend to move to Linux. Brazil was at 20%, which is why Microsoft made it a battleground. IF you believe Microsoft that it was at 1% in the US in 2003 then why don't you believe Ballmer when he quoted 10+% in 2008?

What did Microsoft do about their admissions in these emails that Linux TCO is much less, Linux is more capable, more secure and that Linux is just as easy to use as Windows? Rather than compete on quality, price and innovation they tilted the playing field with a constant barrage of FUD, astroturfing, false representations, threats of lawsuits, and even actually suing small FOSS users with claims that Linux is "their" IP. When the Combs vs Microsoft files were released however, it embarrassed the person put in charge of Microsoft's "Technical Evangelists" and he did a mea culpa. In his confession of wrong doing he points the reader to the Combs-3096.pdf, the Smoking Gun of Microsoft's illegal behavior. It is the behavior that journalist Joe Barr witnessed in the CompuServe Canopus forum and it the kind of attitude the "Steve Bartko and Bill Diamond" incidents revealed.

Commenting on Steve Bartko, James Love remarked "It's hard to know if the incident was a one-time thing or if it is symptomatic of widespread disinformation campaigns." Back in 1998 it WAS "hard to know", because Plamondon had only codified and expanded upon the Canopus and Bartko tactics the year before, in 1997. But, after the Microsoft emails were made public, and the Combs-3096.pdf DETAILED the immoral, unethical and illegal tactics taught by Plamondon to MS TE's there can be little doubt that the beginnings of what became a massive FUD campaign directed at Linux and and more recently at Apple began on Canopus.

The last three or four years has been FILLED with a variety of misdeeds by Microsoft but made public more quickly than court proceedings would allow: financing the SCO attack, their ECMA fast track, the ISO debacle with netted an comfy MS job for the ISO chairman who forced the deciding votes through his committee while violating all its rules, the Massachusetts CIO affair, the Nigerian contract swindle, MS TE Wang caught red-handed astroturfing. to name but just a few.

Sadly, the "1%" myth fits the world view of those who also believe other Linux myths:
http://linuxologist.com/1general/9-linux-myth-debunked/
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...html?tk=hp_new
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/jamies-...yths-10014283/

[zlow]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

As usual, we agree to disagree.

Anyone with experience in the industry knows that anything over 1 or 2% is a fairy tale. I have been following trade shows and conventions for many years and know Zonker in real life. I don't need your make believe, I know without a shadow of a doubt that 10% just isn't true. Of course Microsoft claims Linux has tons of market share, they are an illegal monopoly and lying about Linux is in their best interest.

Agree to disagree? No, I just know the facts.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

My "make believe" against your "knowledge of the facts".

Interesting dichotomy.

One of us may be practicing a religion. Readers will make up their own minds, of course.

[zlow]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

Everyone knows you preach the I hate M$ faith. I don't care about any particular vendor or software. Anyone reading anything I write gets that. Implying I follow a religion doesn't help your case, it just makes you look bad.

:P

[GreyGeek]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

Everyone knows you preach the "I hate M$" faith.

There, fixed that for you.

Ah, PC code words... equate someone's opinion with "hate". Nice touch, but over used and getting long in the tooth.

Returning to the topic: that 1% you so fervently believe in came from NetApplications which, as I pointed out, probably came from Microsoft's "Linux Heat" px09445.pdf document, unless you want to believe that Microsoft queried 160 million desktop users too. You DID read the article from a year ago that I quoted in which it was reported that NetApplications cut Apple's desktop share in half over night, didn't you?

The so-called market share reports issued every month by Net Applications have long been controversial -- mostly because they didn't actually measure market share (which business people typically express as the number of widgets they sell in a given period divided by the total number of widgets sold).

What Net Applications did instead was sample data from browsers visiting their clients' websites and report what percentage came from machines running Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.

But despite their flaws, we tracked the net metrics firm's reports because their sample size was relatively large -- some 160 million visits per month -- and because they offered regular snapshots of broad market trends. They revealed, for example, the rise of Firefox, the decline of Internet Explorer, the failure of Windows Vista to catch on. Their reports were consistent, dependable, and free.

Until now.

Net Applications' reports are still free, at least some of them (mobile market share data now costs an arm and a leg). But their dependability -- and perhaps their credibility -- just took a huge hit.

And they go on to explain why that credibility took a big hit. Care to guess what kind of statistical metric they could use which could cut site counts in half over night?

Starting in June the company changed the way it weights its data, giving more weight to page views from countries with large Internet populations that aren't well represented by their clients (such as China) and less weight to hits from countries like the U.S. that are over-represented in their data.

"Giving more weight" is multiplying specific counts of a particular Agent by some value which raises the "apparent" number of those agents by some amount. "Giving less weight" is using a negative factor and decreases the resulting value.

The reasoning goes like this: "Everyone KNOWS" that there are more PCs in China running Windows than there are running Macs. So, using "gut" feelings fueled by that "Everyone KNOWS" Faith, they pick a factor which results in a value for Windows which is more in line with what they feel the "true" Windows market share should be. And, why choose China and not India, or the EU?

Faith? Unless you realize that Microsoft shops around for "consulting firms" which will give them the numbers they want, a FACT which Jim Allchin expressed very plainly in the Combs v MS emails I cited. But, hey, discount the FACTS all you want if you "KNOW" what the truth is.

[zlow]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

My friend, you really do have a screw loose.

All that you have proven is that Microsoft is evil. Big deal, everyone already knows that. What you haven't done (even a little) is prove that Linux has the market share numbers that you speculate.

What you have done (again) is point to a picture of a powerpoint slide and imply somehow that Ballmer states that Linux has 10% of the over all computing market when you know as well as I do that you don't have a shred of credible evidence to support your statement. Perhaps if you posted the minutes from the meeting and highlighted a few sentences where he indicates this someone will believe you. If you were to do that, I might even believe you.

Your posts are long winded, and reek of nothing more than "I hate M$" fan club, but what your comments don't do is solidify an argument that Linux desktops have more than 1-2% of the market. You make wild claims that I somehow am using Microsoft marketshare numbers, which is nothing but a bold faced lie.

I like my friend Zonker use Wikimedia as our source which by the way has no ties to the evil empire that keeps you awake at night.

See for yourself - http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia...ingSystems.htm

I don't care about Microsoft, nor do I care about NetApplications. You are simply pointing to them and implying that they are my source so that in your misguided (dare I say a little insane?) mind you can be right, and I can be wrong.

Unfortunately, again you have failed.

Perhaps if you stop being a biggot and grow up a little (perhaps shelve the Microsoft crazy that's eating away at your brain), I would be interested in talking about this further.

I suspect though that you will just continue to lie and bluff your way through life, maybe you'll even convince a few people that just don't know better.

I'm sorry if I'm not one of those people, because I like others that are really actually involved in the industry (yes, there is an entire industry around Linux) DO know better.

Enjoy your night, and don't forget to take your pills. Looks like you need them tonight.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Linux 10% Market Share

Oh, great, another web statistic.

Interesting though. The "original" 1% myth generator, Net Applications, shows shows 5% for Macs. But, that is not surprising because

Net Applications has retroactively revised previously published data before (see here), but never to this extent.

I checked the Feb-March 2009 range and sure enough, they've "adjusted" the data.

I like my friend Zonker use Wikimedia as our source which by the way has no ties to the evil empire that keeps you awake at night.

Another assumption on your part, which you cannot verify. Reminds me about the assumptions you made about the PAM security hole, followed by your assumptions about the hacker website's ownership, ALL of which were wrong.

I recited the NetApplications data above because I find it interesting that two different web sites, one running a windows stack and one a Linux stack, report essentially identical data. Considering that NetApp cut Apple's market share from 10% to 5% by "adjusting" their weighting values, it raises the question about how Wiki can arrive at the same figures if they haven't been given the same weighting values to use. But, you never bother to check sources, make comparisons or analyze results. You just assume ... and believe.

You sleep well tonight yourself... light shouldn't be a problem because you already have your blinders on.

Well, since we are only exchanging pleasantries, I'm going to lock this thread.