Is Linux's "Overall Market Share" Statistic Meaningful? 300
ruphus13 writes "Linux recently achieved 1% market share of the overall operating system market. But, does that statistic really mean anything useful? This article makes the case that it doesn't. It states, 'Framed in the "overall market share" terminology, the information (or how it was gathered and calculated) isn't necessarily questionable, it's more that it's meaningless. It's nebulous, even when one looks at several months worth of data. [How] Linux is used in various business settings answers an actual question — and the answer can be used to ask further questions, form opinions — and maybe one day even explain to some degree what 1% of the market share really means. ... Operating systems aren't immortal beings, and by rights, there can't be (there shouldn't be) only one. ... No one system can be everything to everyone, and no one system (however powerful, or stable) can do everything perfectly that just one person might require of it in the course of a day. While observing trends and measuring market share are important, the results (good or bad) shouldn't be any platform's measure of self-worth or validation. It's a data point to build on (we're weak in this area, strong in this area, our platform is being used a lot more this quarter, where did all of our users go?) in order to improve and stay relevant.'"
Re:Not so difficult (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Author... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, there is no meaningful way to accurately measure how many people (or businesses) are using Linux, or Windows, or BSD. So "market share" is meaningless. Its just a statistic that marketing departments can twist to sound however they want it to sound.
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, that's not terribly important, so long as the methodology isn't downright absurd. What's more important is market share of what market. Of servers, it's going to be much higher than 1%, but that's not a very interesting market to most people.
Of the business market, that's a bit more interesting. Still, more of a factoid type number than something useful.
The truly interesting number for most people is the consumer or home user market. That tells you what people are running when given a choice. Even if someone bought a Mac or Windows PC without knowing Linux existed, they can choose to install it at any time. Of this market, I suspect the number is actually less than 1%.
First, that "1%" figure was from only one source. (Score:5, Interesting)
But this also bears examining: 1% (or 5% or 6%) of what OS market? Linux is sure as hell a lot higher than that in the server market, and if you are talking about internet servers, higher still.
So, maybe it doesn't have wonderful desktop penetration yet. But I bet it's higher than those statistics say! My bet is that Linux is the secondary OS for an awful lot of people, often via dual-booting. Just as "one and one only" voting has been shown to be inferior to "instant runoff" and other voting methods, saying that people have only "this or that" OS does not present an accurate picture of the landscape.
Re:Quick response: No (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't quite true. I use Linux primarily because it's such an excellent development environment. However, I'd like to see it get a larger market share so that I can reap the benefits of manufacturers producing and testing drivers for hardware, and software developers releasing versions of their programs for Linux. I don't really care about market share for it's own sake, but market share comes with perks!
I figure Linux would only need around 5% market share to get me most the advantages I want though. Not everyone needs to use it!
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:3, Interesting)
What matters are the network affects. The Linux ecosystem (including the pantheon of open source projects) relies on contributions from the 1% of people who are able to fix bugs and add features.
Geeks used to try Linux for geek points. Now geeks use Linux because it's better in most ways for what they use it for. That's the battle that Linux has won.
Yes, I've heard about .net ... it's a factor, but if it really flies mono will catch up.
Why on the desktop? (Score:1, Interesting)
I confess to a bit of confusion as to why we're so wrapped up with getting linux on the desktop. We have a perfectly valid desktop operating system; Windows ( although I have yet to administrate 7 in a corporate environment, so take what I say with a grain of salt ).
Yes yes, it's evil and horrible and all the other things we like to harp on it about. It's also entirely manageable and entrenched. And while, yes, I would like many of the manageability functions linux provides, there are a lot of things that linux simply does not do as well as windows ( irregardless of the applications ).
Seems to me our efforts would be best served towards back end work; getting decent file systems ported to linux, providing samba with even more features that windows does not natively have, ect...
Re:It's not meaningless at all (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux has been a viable operating system for at least ten years now. Ditto for FreeBSD which I use. They have had ample developers to make them viable for a very long time. Don't worry about what other people are using, and make your own decisions.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My gut says about 5% (Score:3, Interesting)
Anything running a GUI could be said to be trying to be like Windows. They all have "windows", some form of "menus" and mouse interaction. This is already pretty much the universal default for ALL OSes. I can't remember the last time I installed Linux, but not a windows manager with it. Hell, I was using "windows" like apps before Windows became ubiquitous. Back in DOS I pretty much only used Xtree, even to execute files.
Yes, a minor fringe of people will still insist on CLI only, but they are completely irrelevant.
I personally don't care if all OSs converge on being "Windows like" (which itself is "Mac like". Its the stuff under the hood that matters more, as long as none of that changes, I don't care. Look at OS X, yes it has a slick GUI that puts non-intimidation and user-friendliness above pure geekish power, but one hot key away is a shell prompt and 90% of the power of BSD, more with extensions. The same will probably go for Linux. Unless they somehow scrap the kernel completely, and remove the ability to quickly open a terminal window, there is no problem.
Ubuntu, also, is a pretty solid distro, ignoring being somewhat, kinda, but not really, Windows like. I haven't really run into any lack of Linux features. Hell, if decide to boot into pure GUI-free linux, I doubt many people could really tell the difference.
Also, Linux will always be free for tinkerers. If you don't like Gnome or KDE's current look, go fork it and make it to your tastes. Hell, I don't even know how many alternative windows managers are out there these days, maybe one of them is not-Windows enough for your tastes.
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux has over 90% of the supercomputing market (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be interesting to come up with a metric that evaluated "real" work done under each platform. The numbers might be surprising.
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely. I want to be able to walk into a store, buy some random piece of hardware and be absolutely sure that it will work under Linux. I don't care how many people use Linux, I just want to make my own personal choice to use it easier.
The question is, what market share is required to achieve this? I'm betting it's fairly low, I mean, even at 1% we are starting to see some traction. Boxes with Linux pre-installed are available from major manufacturers (albeit in a limited and hidden manner), more and more hardware makers are starting to produce drivers or release specs so the community can (I'm looking at ATI here).
If we are getting all this at 1%, then surely full-support can't need a huge amount more, I'd guess at 10% we should be good. How long it will take to get there is another question.
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a geek. I run Windows XP OEM install on my Aspire One laptop.
However, I run debian stable for any server stuff.
And I don't actually do development on the netbook. I remote into the debian machine and there I do work.
Does that make me a hypocrite? No. I never claimed that Linux should be on all the desktops. I claimed, and continue to, that linux can be a fine desktop for people who know how to set it up well enough. I personally don't want to invest the time to do that.
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:3, Interesting)
> or that they don't visit the top several hundred most popular web sites
Did they ever check that these sites are actually Linux accessible? If not, they would hardly register any Linux connections even if the world was being taken over by Linux...
I am just saying that because some IT sites come to a very different conclusion - maybe Linux users are more selective about their information sources, and avoid the mainstream. Somehow that would make sense :-)
I think the point of the study is that the market share is still small, probably in the single digits.
Re:of course it means something numbnuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Uuuhhh....because home users blow some serious cash? i know plenty of businesses that still have a lot of P3 and early P4 Win2K boxes doing day to day office work.
FWIW I recently upgraded a business' desktop machine to Ubuntu 9.04. It runs off a K6 and has something like 256 megs of RAM. Works fine.
hell i knew a business that just a couple of years back finally gave up trying to keep that POS WinNT4 server going.
I know a few that are still running as data/printing servers.
For every business that spends the bucks and upgrades on a schedule there are probably a dozen or more who are tight fisted as hell when it comes to spending anything on IT gear.
In my experience, it's more like "we fix what's broken, what works we keep". Makes sense to me.
I agree with the rest of your post though. Generic home users are used to the Windows way. If you buy amazingly crappy hardware, it will always come with a driver CD (the kind of drivers that you don't really want on a working machine but that get the gizmo to work).
OTOH of course I bought a new fancy keyboard (Enermax Caesar) for my Linux box with an internal sound chip. Not only were all the extra keys functional but the USB sound thing worked at once. Not bad IMO, even though no driver is supposed to be required, it shows complete support from the USB and sound subsystems.
Linux is 10% (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone knows Linux has 10% market share worldwide.
Those 1% are from broken statistics. Even for just the US they're wrong.