[kwlug-disc] Linux Marketshare

[john at netdirect.ca]

kwlug-disc-bounces at kwlug.org wrote on 02/02/2010 01:49:02 PM:
> 
> "Desktop penetration" that is something that should be highlighted 
> as some people use these stats to point out that "Linux has only 1% 
> of the market" disregarding the market share on servers and embeded 
devices.

But what about the other aspects of this survey?

What web sites were monitored? Forty thousand is a big number for it not 
to be random but what if many were MS centric for some reason or another?

Firefox has User-Agent override add-ons. I use them to access sites that 
claim to require IE but actually don't. In those cases the logs would show 
my system is IE?/WinXP.

How unique are the visits? Is it daily, is it based on IP address, 
cookies, etc?

Could hacks (that are rampant) be masquerading as MS systems and skew the 
numbers?

Maybe there is a bigger difference between the habits of Linux users and 
other Internet users.

When I think about it 1% seems fair, but without digging further I would 
use it as a low point and suggest that it's possibly higher.

John Van Ostrand
Net Direct Inc.
 
CTO, co-CEO
564 Weber St. N. Unit 12
map
 
Waterloo, ON N2L 5C6
 
john at netdirect.ca
Ph: 866-883-1172
ext.5102
Linux Solutions / IBM Hardware
Fx: 519-883-8533