In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Tom Shelton
<tom_shelton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:47:12 -0500
<hNWdnQAVEoz9VijVnZ2dnUVZ_h6dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> On 2008-08-27, Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> Is Linux?s Marketshare Closer to 20% Or More?
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| What I want to suggest is that the fact that you cannot prove what the
>>| marketshare is, combined with general perceptions that computers are Windows,
>>| combined with Microsoft and Apple?s PR all make it perfectly possible that
>>| Linux?s marketshare is, in fact, closer to 15% or 30%, making it possibly
>>| more than the Mac. After all, a lot seems to suggest that the Mac is weak
>>| outside the US and Linux has cought on more outside the US. But hey, that is
>>| just a guess too!
>>|
>>| The fact is, we have no real evidence and no way of getting real evidence,
>>| so, until we get some good evidence, we shouldn?t just assume no one uses
>>| Linux.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.linuxloop.com/news/2008/08/26/is-linuxs-marketshare-closer-to-20-or-more/
>>
>> 40-50% installed base for GNU/Linux on the desktop, according
>> to boycottnovell. Niche sites are rarely accounted for in
>> Big Lie 'studies'.
>>
>
> Niche sites are exactly what you want to avoid counting in a study. You want
> stats from sites that have wide appeal across all platforms.
>
Plus they have to be unbiased. www.activex.com (which
turns out to be a redirect to www.download.com/ActiveX
anyway) would not be a good candidate, for example.
Neither would www.gentoo.org, though the latter might
get an occasional hit from a Linux-curious IE user.
www.cnn.com might qualify; it's a popular generally
OS-agnostic web site (though there are possible issues
regarding video -- fortunately, CNN's video works fine
for me).
Ditto for news.bbc.co.uk, and a few other such sites,
absent distinguishing issues such as Microsoft-specific
tags, video capability, etc.
www.boycottnovell.com would be highly biased in favor
of Linux, mostly because Windows users would (I suspect)
have little or no interest in Novell's alleged machinations
therewith.
Also, it is far from clear whether www.boycottnovell.com
would have sufficient datapoints for drawing conclusions.
And of course all these tell you is the number of hits from
a browser; it says nothing about systems disconnected from
the Web, systems impersonating Windows (to avoid certain
Website stupidity that fortunately seems to be on the way out),
and systems that have been modified in various ways, some
legitimately, some not.
There are additional issues in light of the number of zombiebots
running amuck, especially if a website becomes a target of a
DDoS/bandwidth-robbery attack.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of
elderberries!" - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
|
|
