Attempts to Count Linux Users Remain Pointless

An anonymous reader writes "A great deal of attention is paid to numbers, but rarely does one actually ask what these numbers mean. One problem that many people have been trying to tackle is gauging the extent of use of Free software, including Linux. Questionnaires are not a solution here and neither are statistics, which are usually derived from the wrong data. The following article looks at the various challenges at hand and concludes that the growth rate of Linux is likely to remain an enigma."

Comments

hmm.

[apodyopsis]

well I skimmed TFA and conclude we can now expect in these comments:-

(1) a lot of foaming at the mouth rants and statistics from Linux evangelists
(2) some distie bashing thrown in for good measure
(3) the inevitable vista comments and hints about massive marketing campaigns
(4) maybe some mention of PCs shipped with Linux pre-installed
(5) if we are really lucky maybe the odd referenced fact

.. and nobody being better informed at then end of it.

It depends on your definition.

[CaptainPatent]

A "Linux user" could be anything from a hardcore Gentoo-compiling mad man of a Linux user to somebody who uses a phone or other device which has embedded Linux. I for one dual boot so for purposes of this attempt at a survey am I half of a linux user? I use several devices with embedded Linux distros so am I 80% Linux user? Does the device need to be capable of browsing to a webpage or (as is cliche on /.) does it just have to run Linux?

Re:Start counting here

[SatanicPuppy]

That's the whole problem. If I count home and work, I have more than 20 linux "servers" of which one is a cluster containing twice that many machines. But I'm the only person who uses them (well, the only person who directly uses them, e.g. logs into them), so really, in terms of users that's just 1...You can't count everyone who goes to a webpage, or uses a bind, ntp, samba, squid, etc service to be a linux user.

That's why it's hard to count. Windows users are easy: it's almost all 1 to 1. I have 1 windows machine, so mark me down for 1 in the windows category as well. You can be even more specific and count windows licenses; this is misleading...My workplace has a great number of unused windows licenses...But it's a good number with documentation behind it, whereas linux can only count support contracts with big linux vendors.