On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 03:38:14 -0700, cc wrote:
> On Aug 30, 5:23 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>> Playing the numbers game: how many Linux installations and users are out there?
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | But smolt is only an opt-in tool and is not offered during text installations
>> | (Servers, etc.) at all. According to Fedora's statistics page the estimated
>> | ratio between smolt data and reality is 1 to 10. This would result in 1.25
>> | million Fedora users - and therefore in 25 million Linux users.
>> |
>> | Looks nice, especially considering the fact that Apple's userbase was around
>> | 22 million half a year ago.
>> | Ubuntu
>> |
>> | There is another possible approach to these numbers: Ubuntu's Mark
>> | Shuttleworth estimated 8 million Ubuntu users in an interview in late
>> | December 2006. And both the Linux Desktop Survey and the web server logs from
>> | Distro Watch gave Ubuntu roughly 30 % of the cake. This makes more than 26.6
>> | million Linux users 8 month ago.
>> `----
>>
>> http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/playing-the-numbers-game-how...
>>
>> Many Linux PCs are not connected (or appliance-ed), so it's probably much
>> higher than this.
>
>
> So, Mark Shuttleworth makes an estimate off the top of his head with
> no stats to back it up, and now that's the basis for counting Linux
> users? He could have easily estimated 1 million, or 10 million. He
> just guessed! Fedora's ratio is the exactly the same: a guess. All
> statistical samples show that the usage is not that high yet, which is
> exactly how an estimate is supposed to be made. You can't make
> statistical observations off of blind guesses.
That's pretty much what the article is about, surely, the difficulties of
estimation wrt Linux usage.
--
Kier
--
Kier
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