Debunking Linux-Windows Market Share Myths 631
bc90021 writes "Nicholas Petreley has a great article over at LinuxWorld explaining why it seems that Windows has such a high market share when 40% of developers are focusing on Linux. From the summary: "There are dozens of reasons why people have underestimated how quickly Linux has been grabbing Windows' market share. Windows starts out with a false boost and maintains its illusory market share even as it gets replaced by Linux. In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Windows to become the main focus for developers.""
About Nicholas Petreley (Score:5, Informative)
I hope he's right about this, but I look at it with cautios optimism. One can never really know for sure whether what you are getting is a factual account ot the way things are, or the way he thinks they oughtta be.
About Linuxworld.com (Score:3, Interesting)
These are the same guys that hired Joe Barr to write for them. This guy is about as un-professional as they come.
Take a look at this article [linuxworld.com] on UT2003 for linux. The article itself was pretty bad, but look at the name calling tirade he goes on when people give negative feedback in the comments section.
Re:About Nicholas Petreley (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say it was a good article with a lot fo valid points. MS is loosing market and fast too.
Re:About Nicholas Petreley (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe that Gnome and KDE would both like to clone the Windows(tm) UI as closely as possible
I sure hope not. I might have to go back to fvwm2 in order to have a usable window manager that actually knows that keyboard focus and topmost window are actually two seperate independant things that have nothing to do with each other.
Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kinda like using microsoft's tactics against them, the end users won't have another choice.
I doubt that companies will want to develop a product for each OS, it's too costly. So, they'll pick a platform and stick with it. If most of the developers that apply for the job are specialized in linux, the company may decide that it's a good way to go, since lots of people are writing for it.
on a more humorous note: My girlfriend cares about at least one developer...
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ignorance Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
A large number of users buy a computer with windows xp installed. I've been looking recently and can't find a cheaper "mainstream" retailer that sells linux boxes cheaper than windows. In fact I just bought a laptop. Dell had the cheapest one that I liked, and it came with xp. Finding anything comparable with just linux on it I found I would be paying out the ass to get linux over windows.
Sometimes windows is cheaper, and definitely easier to find on new computers...plain and simple
Re:Ignorance Maybe (Score:4, Funny)
And quite honestly if your computer already comes with XP on it, there is no point to downgrade to a Linux distro.
Quite right, but there are some fairly compelling reasons to upgrade to one.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
A linux user using 'doze for the first time experiences exactly the same thing, if anything even worse, if you compare the amount of cruft and general weirdness of linux vs 'doze.
True, learning a new system is a big barrier, but I don't think there is anything intrinsically harder about learning linux.
Its like saying "DVD players arn't for the masses" just because the controls are different from a VCR. If its useful enough, then people will just learn to use it.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually disagree with you, I think a Linux user going to a Windows environment has a much easier time. In part because many things in Windows are specifically dumbed down to make them single click applications.
A perfect example is MacroMedia Shockwave. In Windows when I wanted it I just clicked on MacroMedia's site and it installed itself. For Linux, however, I had to jump thru hops, navigate hidden directories and manually do it.
I do think you are correct in one aspect however, if a Linux user was on a Windows box and wanted to twik it or perform administrative tasks they would have a steeper learning curve, especially with XP. Over all though, for user stupidness/friendlyness I would say Windows has the upper hand.
For now. And it's not Linux's fault either, BTW. It's the third party companies that don't build in that "I just want to click once and have it work" functionality.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Informative)
Dumbed down is fine for the first week or two. After that the dumbing down may get in the way (that's my experience, but I'm a geek so I discount that anecdotal evidence). On the other hand, I've recently experienced some non-geek rommates, so their experience is more relevant to this discussion.
When, my old roommate got to go from WIndows to Linux. His first week was like: "Hey, what's this sucky OS? Why doesn't anything work like Windows? why can't I do this?".
After the first couple of weeks he seemed to be getting used to Linux, and after a month or two he was more of a linux missionary than even I was. I was actually surprised by his enthusiastic embrace of Linux.
I got him using Linux because it was easier on me (he was using my box). With Linux he had his own account with it's own settings and I even had xdm set up so that ctrl-alt-F7 was him while ctrl-alt-f8 was me. No need to even logout. that was RH5.2 ~ 6.1.
My new roommate has a friend who's WIndows box self destructed. After recovering the data on his old disk, I installed RedHat 8.0, downloaded the MP3 extensions for XMMS, set up mplayer and let him take it home. I only got 1 or 2 support calls in the first couple of days -- After that, silence. It was so quiet, I was actually wondering if he'd given up and gone back to WIndows so I called him. He was quietly happy. Linux was doing everything he needed. It just wasn't doing anything wrong.
Now my roommate, who originally pretty much swore that he'd never move from Windows ("Everything I know how to do is on WIndows. Why would I learn another OS?"). Is starting to use the 7.3 installation that I dropped onto his system (a disk from an old computer of mine that died). I didn't even know that he was making any real use of it until he mentioned that now was a good time to install the upgrades that I'd wanted.
You know you've got a kickin' OS when the support people are worried by the silence.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:2, Interesting)
what, I can dream can't I.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt that companies will want to develop a product for each OS, it's too costly.
If done properly multiplatform shouldn't cost that much extra, compared to the increased number of possible customers. So for the time beeing I think we could expect quite a few multiplatform developments. Then the time will come when enough people realize that they can get all their favorite apps on both windows and linux. Then the two OS-es will finally compete on an equal footing and the customer will choose based on price and quality instead of whether ProgramX will run. I expect MS will have to change it's pricing drastically in order to stay a major player
This is ofcource assuming MS doesn't manage to get linux outlawed as "terrorist tools" or use some other kind of legal extortion too keep it's lead.
on a more humorous note: My girlfriend cares about at least one. developer...
That's nice, good luck to the both of you. Could you please give me a few pointers on how to achieve this. My wife care's for me, except for the developer part, she appear to believe it interferes with our social life and keeps me from giving her the attention she deserves. I'm afraid I'll have to start keeping my computer in a locked room lest it'll be the victim of a jealousey murder :)
Take Marketing 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Interesting)
These closed source tools don't have much nerd crediblity as they were built to hide the "programming" so they are often ignored by the open source community, but they're interesting because of their deep integration in education. We're talking huge taxpayer bucks have been spent on this stuff.
I think it's really important that we get people to vote on the upcoming legislation directing government money towards open souce and education is a huge part of that. One of the arguments that you're going to hear is that the schools will have to toss all their old software because it only runs on Windows. Well, that's total bullshit. I've never seen one of these Macromedia education apps that won't run under Wine.
If we introduce open source in the K-12 schools, it's just a matter of time till Windows becomes little more than a history lesson.
Wrong, very wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wrong, very wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure that happens. We also used Macs k-12. But, and I know someone is going to flame me, macs sucked back then compared to your average pc. If you had access to a pc and a mac you'd notice that the applications for pc were much better. Plus it didn't help any that the computers used in school were older and slower, which was a big difference in those days. It's probably why I really hated using macs until someone with a modern G3 let me play with theirs.
However, in my University, we use Sola
Re:Wrong, very wrong (Score:3, Informative)
So, what you're saying is,
1) I'm an idiot for buying a product that's supposed to work, and expecting it to work, and,
2) I'm an idiot because I'm able to use E Machines as reliable servers by putting Linux on them.
I suppose most of humanity must be ignorant morons, because they pretty much all fall into #1. If everyone has to reinstall Windows, then why bother pre-installing it?
I think that *YOU* are the ignorant moron, and a self-righteous and mouthy one at that.
Re:Wrong, very wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? What does the number of developers have to do with anything? Suppose 1% of software developers work on MS-Office, what is to stop 95% of end users from using MS-Office? I just don't see the connection.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course that is only the long term trend. But in the past M$ has considered it an absolute priority to capture the 'developer mindshare' and get them writing code for the Windoze platform, and only for the Windoze platform. A trend away from that will have Bill in a spin.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:3, Funny)
Erm, better make that "two"... ;-)
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
But I've found that in talking to even very computer-illiterate people, it's not that hard to get them over this conceptual block. Explain in simple terms what hardware is, what an OS is, what application software is, and that you have choices in all areas, and they're pretty happy. People like having choices -- and they may be confused into thinking that Dell vs. Gateway vs. HPaq is a "choice," but once they understand the situation a little better, they'll often have the brains to make a more informed decision.
Also, there is a growing number of people in the middle ground of computer literacy -- the world isn't just 1337 and 1uz3rz any more. These people aren't programmers, but they have some idea what's going on inside the computer, they're comfortable with fairly complex tasks in a wide variety of applications, and although they may not know a whole lot about the alternatives to Windows/Office/IE, they know that those alternatives are out there and they want to learn more.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming a conspiracy against Linux gives Microsoft WAY MORE credit than they deserve. Making sarcastic comments about Linux as an OS for hackers and pirates accomplishes nothing.
Start the battle on the premise that there are alternatives. Once people know about the alternatives, then the "Linux rulz" crowd is useful in spreading their cause. Right now, they have it backwards and Microsoft is firmly in control because of it.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention "its free, but you can buy it in CompUSA." Say what!? Nothing is free, and that just confused him, so I left him thinking he could buy it at CompUSA, but I got the hook up just in case
Also, windows has the correctness connundrum. People think any mistakes are their own and not the fault of windows, automatically... I think they would be more likely to blame Linux for any shortcomings. This means more phone calls to "yours truly."
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
scripsit dnoyeb:
Hmm. This isn't, I think, restricted to Windows. I had an interesting OS X experience over the weekend. An acquaintance was having trouble with a USB external hard drive. OS X was locking up hard (at least keyboard and mouse, there was no network so I don't know if I could have ssh'd in) when the device was disconnected the ``Mac way'' (i.e., drag to trash or select File | Eject). The user assumed he was doing something wrong. To me it was obvious that this is some kind of bug in OS X's USB support, but a user not confident in his skills assumed the error to be his own.
The same goes, by the way, for other devices. I don't really have any insecurities about my telephone-using skills, so if I encounter a mobile phone which isn't easily usable I blame a bad UI. Other people seem to think it's their own fault if they can't immediately grok a bad UI.
Re: Who cares about end developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, who cares about end users?
I'm dead serious here. As a linux user I couldn't care less what the windows using 90 per cent does. Tell you the truth I'm more than happy that they're using windows and hopefully would stay there. Especially if the developement focus is moving towards linux.
I don't see any need for linux to overtake M$. Things are good as they are. I'm afraid they'll only get worse with more computer-illiterates changing sides.
The worst phenomenon by far to-date is the assimilation of windows ui. We'd be far better off sticking to new inventions and new paradigms and not just idiotically copy the mistakes made in windows ui developement. I understand that that is important if we want that 90% to shift over, but what's the point in that if the cost is making major distro desktops like windoze.
Re: Who cares about end developers ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not sure I can follow you here. First off, 90% of the Windows UI is really the Apple UI which is really the PARC UI. What's more, a lot of the UNIX/Linux UI work that is going on today *is* innovating, just not by throwing out 30 years of history. There are elements that have been absorbed from
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. To them, their applications are the computer. I've heard people respond "Windows 97" when asked what version they're using, because that's the version of Office that they use all (day, everyday).
To most people, the OS is utterly irrelevant. It's just the thing that they know has to load before they can load the programs that they actually want and need to use.
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Who cares about developers ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Developers are the suppliers of product, desktop users are the consumers of same. The suppliers have to be anticipating upcoming trends in consumer tastes and responding to that. If they guess wrong then they can suffer inordinately, even go out of business. So it's a reliable indicator of what trends the market will be feeling down the road if the producers ( as a body, not as individuals ) are gearing up for a particular shift in their production.
If there is a definite noticeable shift on the part of developers to a different target platform, then that indicates one of a few things, as I see it:
1) There will be an upcoming shift in tastes on the part of consumers to that different platform. Developers see this upcoming shift and jump ( en masse ) to anticipate it. Or that because the developers shift, the consumers follow to gain the advantages of new products. Most likely a combination of the above.
2) Developers can continue to produce for the current tastes of consumers while lowering their own costs of production. It could be that there is no impending shift of demand to the linux platform, but the ability to build cross-platform apps using linux technology gives developers an edge while lowering their own costs.
3) The entire body of developers, as a class of informed professionals, are all self-delusional. They have bought into the Linux hype and are making the worst decision of their careers, and hence are heading over a cliff like so many lemmings. It seems to me that this argument will be very hard to defend.
The dynamic of supply and demand simply won't allow large scale trends NOT to be based upon advantages and improvements in the market. That's why we should care about these statistics about developers.
Reminds me of video card market share... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheers,
_GP_
Say what you want... (Score:5, Interesting)
Trying to be totally unbiased here, but all these stats are making me confused about the "truth".
Dave
Re:Say what you want... (Score:5, Insightful)
95.7% of statistics are meaningless.
Re:Say what you want... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Say what you want... (Score:2, Informative)
kio_http: (638) ============ Sending Header:
kio_http: (638) GET
kio_http: (638) Connection: Keep-Alive
kio_http: (638) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux)
kio_http: (638) Accept: text/*, image/jpeg, image/png, image/*, */*
kio_http: (638) Accept-Encoding: x-gzip, x-deflate, gzip, deflate, identity
kio_http: (638) Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1, utf-8;q=0.5, *;q=0.5
kio_http: (638) Accept-Language: en, POSIX
or the same browser prentending to be a MS OS:
kio
Re:Say what you want... (Score:4, Informative)
The way I do it is adding
user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98)"); to my prefs.js.
I have the feeling that this is common practise. I would prefer to have (like some other brilliant browser) the ability to "fake" the useragent for specific urls only.
Re:Say what you want... (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind most Linux machines are servers and most people don't browse the internet with their servers.
Re:Say what you want... (Score:3)
Surely those who target primarily Linux use it as their main desktop OS. It really is comparing apples and oranges, I know.
It reminds me of how a few years ago Sun claimed that they had like millions of developers in the Java camp, and it was all based on the number of JDK downloads.
Sure I downloaded it, even installed it, and then removed it. Am I part of the Java camp now
Re:Say what you want... (Score:5, Funny)
50% of the Linux developers at my firm use Windows as the desktop. The other half (me) use Linux :)
Is that statistic meaningful?
Re:Say what you want... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also, I have to say, doubtful that any browser-sniffing gives an accurate picture of what people out there are using, because so many people set Opera et al (on any OS) to report itself as IE for Windows. Personally I think that's a terrible idea -- if I find a site that refuses to work with my preferred setup (Mozilla on OS X) I figure, well, what the hell, I didn't really need to look at that site anyway -- but an awful lot of people do it.
Servers? Fah! Here's How To Take The Desktop (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter how good Linux is from a technical pespective, it won't threaten Microsoft on the desktop until Linux developers offer consumers a non-ideological incentive to go to all the hassle and risk of abandoning Windows. I think it will take something along these lines:
1) Create Linux applications that do compelling and unique things that Microsoft apps don't (being "as good as" Office won't cut it for most people, any more than Texturized Soy Protein outsells real beef);
2) Slap a $39.95 price sticker on those apps, write good documentation, stuff 'em in cute shrinkwrapped boxes and get them onto store shelves;
3) Create a "wedge" of non-geek, non-techie "real" people using Linux and exploit their existence to the hilt. Convince ordinary people that Linux is for them. (See Apple's "Switch" campaign.)
4. Build Linux installation software that allows a new user to stick a CD in the slot, click "Go", walk away, and come back 15 minutes later to find Windows gone, Linux up and running, and all his Windows-created data and files preserved and migrated to the right Linux apps.
Good luck, and have fun.
Re:Say what you want... (Score:3, Interesting)
They now changed the website software to some ASP thing, anyway the site _refuses_ anything but IE. But not only that, but Win98 users who haven't bothered upgrading IE can't access it either.
A large number of the University's computers are Sun Rays which make it impossible to access this sit
I have my doubts about zeitgeist (Score:5, Interesting)
Proxies. Again, more linux users could be behind a proxy (a few hundred linux users at my univ go through a single proxy) than windows users
Third, some factors similar to those described in the article could be at work (linux more efficient ==> less linux servers for same job). Maybe linux users are more efficient googlers? I think this is unlikely, but still a possibiility.
Fourth, it doesn't agree with my webserver stats (i.e, counting the hits I get from google searches). Of course, my data set is quite small, but it can not cause a threefold difference (I get 3% linux, 5-6% Mac). Maybe its because the content I have is biased towards linux users, but on the whole it makes me think that some combination of the factors above may be at work in decreasing the perceived share of linux.
Re:I have my doubts about zeitgeist (Score:3, Insightful)
First, that's an unreasonable assumption. Second, I rather suspect that google.com is calculating statistics on all hits, not just unique visitors. There's no reason to do otherwise, at least not from a statistical sampling point of view.
"Proxies. Again, more linux users could be behind a proxy (a few hundred linux users at my u
Re:Say what you want... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the interesting paragraph in the article should be held up for all to see:
This is not important in the server market. I would be surprised to see too many people buy servers pre-installed with Windows, only to re-install Linux. Major vendors already have Linux preinstall options. I think from a desktop perspective this paragraph is valid, but we must be cautious. Maybe some low end servers are really desktops that did come pre-installed with Windows, and then there's people like me who keep dual-boot on my workstation for the inevitable crazy formatted Word/Excel/PowerPoint document that I have to edit and reply without changing any of the crazy formatting. So we can take this minus one argument with a pinch of salt, but it's still an interesting one nonetheless.
Interesting statistics are out there though, but they're so well known... still, it's good to keep track. We are seeing big advances in web serving: Apache is now serving over 66% of active web sites (source: www.netcraft.com/survey/). This is overwhelmingly not Microsoft + Apache/Win32: of 11 million sites, only appx. 10 thousand are on an MS platform (source: www.netcraft.com/survey/). However, there will be a lot of people running not just GNU/Linux but also FreeBSD, Solaris, etc, and I can't find any data like that on Netcraft.
If you look at the graph over the last few months it would also seem to suggest that recently Apache has again gained market share against Microsoft platform standards like IIS and Commerce Server. Cool.
Now, as far as vendor evidence is concerned, IBM, Oracle and Dell have all featured Linux in advertising recently, and Linux is being used in high profile embedded apps like mobile handsets. This is excellent. Linux is being talked about more than ever, and I think it is the way forward for the IT industry in general. 2003 will be a good year for Linux, IMHO.
Hooray for GNU/Linux! and remember, the server market share is what really matters. Microsoft will dominate the desktop for some time to come, but I believe Linux will start to make inroads on the desktop market when kernel 2.6 comes out. I have just compiled 2.5.64 and I must say the X windows experience (I was running 2.4.18 before) is fantastic. Much smoother, and less jerky, with additional perks like better ALSA support, more hardware support for USB devices and of course Bluetooth and other things starting to happen nicely. The next commit to the kernel tree will be very interesting too. I'm keeping my eyes wide open and focused on Linux. I'm already making money converting sites from ASP/MSSQL to PHP/MySQL because hosting is much more expensive on Windows platforms and customers are feeling the pinch. They are ready to invest now, to save monthly outgoings, to weather 2003's rather bleak outlook.
Re:Say what you want... (Score:2)
Re:Say what you want... (Score:3, Informative)
The article talks about servers, not desktops. Nick is saying that Linux is displacing Windows on the server, which won't show up on browser hit counters (you don't browse the web with your servers).
Nick is also saying that developers are increasingly focusing on Linux, but doesn't specify if those developers are focusing on the desktop or the server.
Finally, Google will
The reason is easy (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The reason is easy (Score:2, Funny)
Its all about Java and Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
The Java and Linux combination rocks and will give MS fits on the server side.
Re:Its all about Java and Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. It is quite likely that an enterprise using Java does so to avoid the liability OS lock in. .net is not likely to provide that! Another reason to use Java is percieved security from the sandbox. MS doesn't have a very good reputation for security consciousness. They made a lot of noise about focusing on security, but so far, the trivial exploits just keep coming. Even assuming the MS was being sincere, they are still handicapped by their lack of experiance. More and more decision makers are coming to understand that one cannot just say 'today, I will be mindful of security' and magically, the next version is 'secure'.
We must be talking infrastructure development (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We must be talking infrastructure development (Score:2, Informative)
I definitely think this article is talking about "enterprise" share of the market. Which is definitely important, because as developers, that is where alot of the money is made.
And as more server/enterprise software is developed, it will only create more familiarity among developers and companies, eventually encouraging more spill-over into the desktop market.
As a graduating CS senior, every company I interviewed with wanted me to have Linux familiarity, or told me I would be working with it (primarily
2 words (Score:2)
later,
Difficult (Score:5, Interesting)
Good point. We have to stop comparing apples to oranges here, like describing windows market shares in terms of developper tastes
So we have to use a "generic" unit to compare them (like companies use man/hour or man/day to compare solutions). Of course, we have to find a "global denominator" to windows and linux to determine the unit to use.
This global denominator will be hard to find, and won't be very accurate IMHO if we do find it. Like benchmarks, such units are likely to be quite a moving target, especially if we want to compare different versions of the OS (like, say, NT 4 vs Linux 1.2 vs XP vs Linux 2.4.20).
So my point is : we can't do it. Like benchmarks, finding the proper unit to relatively descrimine one OS from another will never be a completed task on our list IMHO.
Be prepared to see the figures next year : Windows 60% market share, Linux 60% market share (ideally obtained when every windows install is cleared in favor of linux). Eww.
Sheesh. (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of developers for a particular platform does not have a thing in the world to do with marketshare, unless you are specifically talking about the marketshare of platforms for development-specific tasks. I'm still not quite sure how this is relevant.
Yes, yes. It's hard to count people using Linux. So, if there's no empirical data, we should probably just move forward and operate under the assumption that Linux is going to dominate Any Day Now.
I like Linux. I run Linux. But pieces like this remind me of 1998, when everyone in their brother was running 'If we don't know the actual numbers, than the numbers must be huge' stories about Linux adoption.
Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation [xiph.org]
keyword (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:keyword (Score:5, Insightful)
Developing in a windows environment, even with something like cygwin or Visual Studio.NET just plain sucks compared to actually being in linux.
How is this? Sorry but having coded for many years using Borland's tools in Windows I found it very very difficult to adapt to Linux development: no context-sensitive help, no organized documentation (yes, lots of documentation, but no "central" organized index which means a research job for a fucking function declaration), no intellisense, no autocompletion, and having to resort to home-brewed makefiles is just a pain in the ass.
Could you please explain which tools are you using for development, so I can use them too and make my life easier? :-)
Re:keyword (Score:5, Informative)
Other than those I use emacs/nedit and a bash shell. I guess all those things like documentation, intellisense, autocompletion and makefiles are a real pain. But I prefer to write my code in a standard text editor. I never really had a need for any of that stuff.
I guess the difference is that I have always coded using a text editor and a shell. You have spent years using Borland's tools, and you have come to rely on things like autocompletion. I usually use books to look up things I can't remember. And that's rare, because not having autocompletion forces me to remember.
I just feel that when I'm writing code I can do a lot more in linux than I can when I'm constrained by something like VS.NET. But when I'm doing anything else doing it in linux seems like too much effort.
Re:keyword (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't really found documentation to be a big problem to be honest, and although more spartan SGML or gtk-html genereated docs are far easier to read than stuff on MSDN, which invariably only looks good on huge screens (with IE of course).
Oh, a decent command line is useful too.
Re:keyword (Score:2)
I certainly agree that Linux is a developer's OS. However, the survey data was what the developers are developing FOR, not what they are developing ON.
What the survey reveals is what mindshare Linux has for new software. Many claimed advantages to running Windows revolve around being able to run all of that exciting new software. If most of that software is going to be for Linux (as the developer survey suggests), that argument for Windows becomes the argument for Linux. Yet another case of MS's own asser
Same as Apple Share, skewed statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has a quarterly SALES pentration/market share of 3% to 4% but has an installed base somewhere around 11%.
Of course we all know what "Mac People" like to point out about the RISC processor being 40% faster than an x86 and in most cases 75-90% than a Celeron. Who knows about the Centrino. (What a poor name to choose - "trino" anything sounds miniscule)
It's the same way in the Linux community. Most versions of Linux run faster than Windows on the same hardware. (true in some cases on Mac hardware than OS X/OS 9 as well) There is a significantly higher number of 'nix users than M$ would like us to believe. I don't know the member numbers at Sourceforge & Slashdot. Not all are 'nix users but it is significantly high. That alone is large enough base. M$ wants everyone to belive that only mainstream/mass advertising companies (like themselves) have market share. They like to take advantage of the public psyche.
Why not use UserAgent? (Score:4, Interesting)
For a website [buffalo.edu] that I manage, the numbers with this methodology are: 89% visitors running MSIE, and 93.91% visitors running Windows (and 3% running Macs, and 0.5% using Linux).
YMMV.
Re:Why not use UserAgent? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, is Google popular enough?
Zeitgeist. [google.com]
For why this number may not be accurate, see above; boils down to 1) are you counting installations, including servers, or desktops in your evaluation? Servers naturally don't access google, but depending on the app that you're developing, a server install of Linux may or may not matter to you. 2) People forge their UA to defeat sniffers; I think less folks do that than you would think, but I think Linux users are more likely to than others.
btw, the stats show that 1% of browsers accessing Google were using Linux; 4% were using some version of a Mac; 4% were "other"--meaning what, I dunno. Are there that many Be/Amiga users out there?
What was the population? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure it's great to think Linux will eventual kill windows, I just don't see any proof of that yet.
Sounds fishy to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the margin of error is at least in the 5-10% area? That sounds quite large, for a survey that purports to take in a wide range of developers. Methinks the author is taking an overly optimistic view of the subject matter - but that's not really surprising...
Windows troubles (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm all for linux in the enterprise and (for me) the home use, but I don't think the way to get linux into those places in the mainstream is to go around saying "Windows is better than Linux" and then stopping. The only way I see linux making strides further into to the server market is to just show people how it compares to other platforms on levels of cost, performance, and maintenance. It won't happen overnight, and it won't happen just because someone spouts off numbers that don't really mean anything - it will take time. But with the people doing the development on linux and linux apps, it will happen.
Just my $0.02....
--Joe
The original MS strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
That carried them to a point where the leverage point was effectively "if you control the desktop you can win the servers (killing off novell, banyan ...). This in turn led to "if you control the desktop and departmental servers, you can muscle into the enterprise" -- fortunately (imo) they've had less luck - despite considerable effort - in killing off Unix/Linux/BSD.
So far at least. I don't think this games very predictable, (and the LW article is *very* thin on data, but there certainly is a deep groundswell of good things happening in OSS, and virtually all big-iron oriented code now targets Linux along with Unix).
However it's perfectly reasonable that as developers move (back) to *nix, eventually the market will follow.
(Remembering Grace Slick of the Starship singing about 'egg-snatchers' -- dunno the Borg's a big target, and elephants are best eaten a bite at a time)
Define "market" (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is still king when it comes to desktops. Not only due to a huge market share but also FUD (not all unfair) towards Linux from common users.
If we define the market as computers as in CPUs, I'd say that neither Linux nor Windows wins or comes even close. There must be far more 8051 controllers out there running a hand coded snippet of control code than there are 8086 derivates.
The GNU/Linux movement shouldn't say that we have beaten Windows, let's relax. Rather we should say we can beat Windows, let's work as much as possible producing quality software.
Wishful thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work in the telcom-business at a company with 120 employed (50 developers: C++/Unix/SUN), where four(!) used Linux at home. The reason for the others to have windows? Games - games - games- games - games...
Id Software and a few others have tried, but... And, Microsoft is working very hard to redirect any proto-Linux-users to MS; and when it comes to games, they still have a magnificent lead thanks to their DirectX efforts. That lead may even be reinforced by the XBox.
Re:Wishful thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
If no one's putting out games for the PC, why not just buy a console and then wipe Windows off your box? That's a good question, and Microsoft might just
40% of developers?!? (Score:5, Informative)
I have a very hard time with this article - (1) no methodology is given, so the results are as suspect as Microsoft funded surveys; and (2) if 40% of all developers of all sizes are focusing on Windows, wouldn't driver support be 1000% better?
Nick appears to be dressing up wishes in the emporer's clothing of misleading "facts". Again. Anyone else remember his weekly diatribes of the vast superiority and impending market conversion to OS/2 in Infoworld?
Re:40% of developers?!? (Score:3, Informative)
I've been developing on Unix (Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX) for over a decade. Not one of the applications will ever be seen by a consumer because it's business logic and backbone server stuff. Heck, most of this stuff isn't even seen by anyone outside the company -- I think my current position is the closest to even t
Pinch of NaCl (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to take this article with a pinch of salt - I know it's hardly empirical evidence, but almost every developer I know is not installing Linux over Windows, rather they're dual-booting their systems to run both Linux and Windows. Maybe this will change in the long run, but I doubt the swing will have been made by 2004.
I'd love to believe what he says, but it doesn't quite ring true from my own personal experience.
FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
*BUT* folks, it is easy for Linux people to provide hard figures on the usage of Linux. If one person would care to write a small deamon that logs usage on a predictable basis and forwards this to a central location then everyone can see how Linux is doing. The package shouldn't expose a fixed ID. It should track how often Linux has been run on the machine in the last x days. It should track the distro. It should be VERY easy for every distro to adopt. Perhaps it should try to track the primary function of the machine (webserver/file server/etc). It should be under the control of the sysadmin. It should should not forward the information every time a user logs in/restart happens/whatever. Rather, it should do it every 1/1000 times (or whatever) and this should be used as a basis for a statistical calc on the number of Linux boxen ad the rate of growth.
Would anyone care to take up the challenge? Feel free to forward this to the mailing lists, perhaps someone there would like to prove a point.
Hard facts count. Marketing blurb doesn't.
What are the developers working on? (Score:2)
If you told me that there was a massive shift in developers at Intuit or Adobe that would raise my eyebrows.
Microsoft tax (Score:5, Insightful)
What about gamers? (Score:2, Insightful)
mmm, propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
No offense to Linux, but 'MacWorld' and 'PCWorld' magazines probably could write the same article about their systems. Can't trust a media produced to promote things.
Client vs Server (Score:4, Insightful)
And of course we all know 1 server box (or 1 cluster) can keep several developers happily employed for years, maintaining & enhancing some line of business app/web application/etc.
So it seems the relationship between the number of developers and number of installs is a pretty weak one.
non- traditional surveys (Score:3, Interesting)
All this tends to indicate to me that
Hmm, reporting bias? (Score:4, Insightful)
How to lie with statistics (Score:3, Insightful)
He said:
1. Evans Data Corporation hired me to help out with a research report focused on Linux developers.
2. Of the developers surveyed, more than 50 percent who now develop primarily for Linux used to develop primarily for Windows. Only 30 percent used to develop for some other Unix or Unix derivative. In case you missed it, the operative phrase is "used to." In other words, this is not a prediction of an emerging trend. It is cold, hard information about what has already transpired, and it withstands the scrutiny of a jeweler's eyepiece.
Now put one and two together and what do you get?
A statistics that is just plain wrong. By only focusing on linux developers, you cannot get accurate statistics.
For example, assume we have.
Microsoft developers 1000 people
Linux developers 10 people
of which
5 used to develop primary for windows
3 used to develop for other unixes
2 otherwise.
How can you prove anything by only doing a survey on linux developers? To get accurate info, you need to either include all developers or take a random sample of all developers.
OMG! (Score:2)
Many more custom systems on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Rolling out 1,000 desktops requires virtually no developer input. Rolling out a unified health and social care workflow system (which is what I'm working on now) takes a lot of developer man hours - but when it's finished it will sit on one (Linux) server (and be accessed by hundreds of desktops, most of which will almost certainly run Windows).
This does not matter
We are not playing a numbers game. We don't need to take over the world. The fact that most users still prefer to use something else on their desktops doesn't make Linux a bad operating system, or a failure, or anything like that. Linux is very successful in a lot of niches. If it ultimately becomes more widely used than Windows, well, that will be interesting; but it won't make Linux any better (or Windows any worse).
Re:Many more custom systems on Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, it doesn't matter who wins (Linux, BSD, whoever), as long as it's not a single corporation (or even a few; oligopolies are not much better than monopolies
How do you count developers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows Inferior? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I wholly agree with Nicholas on most of the article, this line doesn't seem to help the community. One of the stereotypes of linux users is that we think it is better than everything else in every application. This is simply not the case.
I recently helped my grandmother purchase a computer. Her budget was large enough to get an iMac, so I suggested it, and she purchased it. I made sure she got the extended warranty from Apple because it includes phone support. She would not dial the number no matter how much I suggested it.
She liked to get face to face help, and everyone she knows uses Windows. They couldn't help her with her Mac, even though it's the simplest thing to use. In this situation, I bought the iMac from her and replaced it with a Windows PC, and she is now satisfied.
Every system has its place, and ignoring this fact will reflect badly on the Linux community until we realize it.
Re:Windows Inferior? (Score:3, Funny)
Market Share != developers (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a disproportionate number of developers who work on Sun boxes relative to the number of Sun boxes in the whole computing market, for instance. That just means Sun machines are being used in situations where there is more custom development work going on, and in situations where companies need and can afford to pay for more people to maintain code. The proportion of Sun developers doesn't speak at all to the broader market share of Sun machines vis a vis Windows machines.
I always get a laugh when I see an article about the misuse and misinterpration of statistics, which trots out its own to-be-misused-and-interpreted statistics. What's that old saw about lies and damn lies ?
Ms becoming victem of their own strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
The data gathered doesn't answer this question, but I have to wonder.
MS has a well known habit destroying any successful developer of Windows software, either through theft in the guise of a buyout or making a knock off product then welding it into the OS.
While the Free Software community is known for making Free versions of proprietary software (also a potential liability from a proprietary developer's standpoint), it is at least not a total wipeout. They at least know that the OS won't be changed to lock their app out.
The more MS expands, the clearer it will become to developers that Windows development is a good way to get stomped on.
nobody hit on this (Score:5, Insightful)
1. They usually download it for free rather than buy a distro.
2. They wiped the hard drive free of windows, meaning they didn't buy from a white box Linux vendor.
With friends like this who needs enemies.
He maybe right in isolated cases..... (Score:3, Insightful)
I give the customers two options.
1. A windows system with a box delegated for each task and the required MS licenses.
2. A single custom Linux box.
I then explain Linux has no fees associated with it, but it's more expensive to setup. If they go the MS route they will need to pay a few thousand in license costs, it will cost less to initially setup, but more over it's lifetime to maintain, and to reach the same performance levels I will need multiple Windows Machines (don't even talk to me about running exchange with anything else).
My client wins by spending less, and I win by making more.
These are server instances though, I have only ever done a single Linux desktop at a company, and that was for a limited use workstation in a remote part of the country, it can not break unexpectedly.
This is only me, I know the legions of cloned MCSEs outnumber me, so for every Client I flip to Linux they retain many more on the MS side.
Run Linux and profit
The author points out a grey area (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems a lot of people missed the point. That article focused less of stats and more on ways they can be interpreted.
The author is trying to present some alternative ways of interpreting the usual old Win vs. Linux stats that we hear so much. He isn't trying to carve anything in stone. So many of you engineering folks see things in black or white, but this article says there is a grey area. You can look at the grey aread two different ways and it can seem black or white depending on how you look at it. He's not trying to tell us that it's all black or that it's all white.
He makes a great point that there are key ideas in those stats that are often overlooked and are seldom addressed by the Linux community, and never addressed by the Win community(Win preinstalled, Lin more efficient requiring less installs, unsold copies of Win at Best Buy, etc). This is a very insightful article, and while it may be mostly speculation and interpretation, the one fact that we do know is that the Linux developer/user base is growing and will continue to grow(so let's not get hung up on how fast, etc).
Odd... but who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was reading this article and thinking to myself two seperate thoughts: "Well, that's odd...", and "Uh huh... who cares?".
I work for a non-IT consulting company. Me and the team of ~20 developers here write software for engineers to use in petroleum engineering consulting. All of the software, 100% of it, it developed for Windows. I look around and see 0% Linux developers, and 100% Windows developers. But, alright, obviously my survey is baised. However, I only know one single developer here who has ever used Linux, or any operating system other than Windows. The two of us both have our shiny Powerbooks sitting next to our desktop computers while we work, for e-mail and web browsing and the occasional graphics work. I think the statistic that only 50% of developers use Windows is rather odd... since 95% of users are using Windows. Are there huge fields of programmers who develop cross-platform software and trust that it will work in Windows without testing it? Or develop server-side software only, which never sees a user?
Secondly, who cares. I look at a project like Mozilla, and I can see that a lot of the developers are on non-Windows OSes. But I think the majority of even Mozilla users are Windows users. I advocate Mozilla to my friends and family, installing it on computers and replacing IE/OutlookE, and everyone is happy. They're using Mozilla and Windows, and I think this is highly common. FTL [slashdot.org] even replaced the 'INTERNET' icon on his grandmother's computer with Mozilla, and I believe the only comment she ever had was about the cute dragon. Developers may be using non-MS platforms, but they're still developing for users who are in Windows. Right? Or is half the world using Linux on their desktop, and I'm in some la-la land?
Doesn't Quite Add Up (Score:3, Insightful)
I think what Petreley says about developers programming for the server might be close to being correct-- Linux is taking market share from Microsoft, and I think it could extend to Windows server installations as well as Unix. I don't think that Linux is really having an impact on the desktop yet. The other thing he doesn't mention is whether this developer survey is just the USA or whether it's international-- it seems quite probable that Linux has more mind/market share in Europe in particular, than it does in the USA.
My question is, why would someone go to Circuit City or Best Buy to purchase a machine that has Windows pre-installed, then take it home and install Linux? Yes, yes, you can create a dual boot system (not easily), but it would seem to be easier to buy a "naked" PC from an online builder and save yourself the Microsoft "tax", then install Linux. I realize that MS is trying to clamp down on OEMs, but naked machines are still available out there. I bought one just to assure that I could reinstall Windows 2000 (which I got elsewhere) if I had to.
Petreley has a reputation as cheerleading for Java, too. I am surprised he didn't tell us how many of those Linux developers are using Java. I think there's a trend toward Linux, but it is developing less dramatically than Petreley would have us believe.
So let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow from these figures, Petreley concluded that Windows has signifigantly less developer mindshare than Linux.
In other news...
99.9%(with a margin of error of 5%) of respondents at a KKK rally were against affirmative action programs, from this we can clearly conclude that tea in China is selling at 50 cent per pound.
Linix developers not lost to Unix platforms. (Score:3, Insightful)
But since Linux is a posix-compliant UNIX variant, many apps developed for it can be ported straight to Unix flavors by simply recompiling. Windows is a whole different ballgame (unless you develop with the Wine libraries for portability).
Drivers need a bit of porting, but are still 'way closer to Unix than Windows, and apps that use Lunix-specific features will need some tuning (or just not go if the whole POINT is to interact with the Linux feature).
But when a developer switches from Unix to Windows his work is likely still available in the Unix world. (Perhaps moreso, if he's GPLing it now.) Those that switch from Windows to Linux are pretty much GONE on the Windows side of the world.