Is Linux's "Overall Market Share" Statistic Meaningful?

ruphus13 writes "Linux recently achieved 1% market share of the overall operating system market. But, does that statistic really mean anything useful? This article makes the case that it doesn't. It states, 'Framed in the "overall market share" terminology, the information (or how it was gathered and calculated) isn't necessarily questionable, it's more that it's meaningless. It's nebulous, even when one looks at several months worth of data. [How] Linux is used in various business settings answers an actual question — and the answer can be used to ask further questions, form opinions — and maybe one day even explain to some degree what 1% of the market share really means. ... Operating systems aren't immortal beings, and by rights, there can't be (there shouldn't be) only one. ... No one system can be everything to everyone, and no one system (however powerful, or stable) can do everything perfectly that just one person might require of it in the course of a day. While observing trends and measuring market share are important, the results (good or bad) shouldn't be any platform's measure of self-worth or validation. It's a data point to build on (we're weak in this area, strong in this area, our platform is being used a lot more this quarter, where did all of our users go?) in order to improve and stay relevant.'"

Comments

Re:of course it means something numbnuts

[hairyfeet]

And you just answered why the hardware manufacturers don't support Linux. you DO know that pretty much the entire PC industry is built around "bigger faster shinier" right? What are you a communist or something? I just said you need that vast support infrastructure of mom&pop shops to support Joe and Jane and your answer is to not have them buy anything! Why would I want to support your OS again? And why would I want an OS that I have to use ancient hardware with because there simply aren't any new drivers, huh?

Let us be honest here: For home users and the thousands of shops across the country that support them, Linux sucks the big wet titty. Go into any Staples, Best Buy, or Walmart. Right down the names of the big sellers. See how many of their doodads work in Linux. pretty much zipola. Why do you think Walmart don't sell Linux boxes in their store anymore? Because Joe and Jane don't WANT to have to trawl forums just to find out if printer xyz will work with distro x. And even if it does there is a good chance that the next update, released in a crazy 6 month schedule if you are talking Ubuntu, will seriously break stuff. I can't even remember the last time I saw a computer with hardware broken by a Windows update.

Sorry but the home market is a BIG and RICH market, and your OS just don't work with the gear. It costs too much to support, it makes consumers have to do research they will NEVER do, and makes it so they can't shop in the largest retail chains in the country. Sorry, no sale. Better luck next decade.

Re:Quick response: No

[BitZtream]

First off, its not an excellent development environment. I'm so sick of seeing this statement.

Its excellent if you are poor and can't afford to buy software that doesn't suck.

If you think Emacs is all that, I'm sorry but you really are an idiot.

I realize that to Linux users that paying for something is generally akin to cutting your own testicles off, but if you really think Linux is a great development environment then you have never used any of the better commercial development environments available on other OSes.

Its a great dev enviroment like soup from the soup kitchen is great when you're homeless. Its a good thing to have when you're poor and can't buy anything, but once you can stand on your own two feet there is very little intelligent reason to continue using it unless you are developing specifically for Linux.

Lets go over just a couple of reasons to validate my statement:

1) Anything you can do in Linux you can do in other OSes, most of the time this includes Windows. All the tools are available else where, all the utilities, all the editors, languages and compilers, all of it is available everwhere else.

2) Plenty of things AREN'T available for Linux that are available for other OSes.

Done. Yes, there are more, but thats about all that needs to be said. Everyone else has everything Linux has, and Linux doesn't have everything everyone else has.

Its good that you can use Linux for your development work, but please stop try to perpetuate this 'excellent development enviroment' bullshit, its no better than anything else out there and is missing things offered by others. It doesn't have anything unique to it at all, and if you aren't targeting Linux as deployment platform, then you're still going to need a dev environment setup in the OS you are targeting.

So, good for making shitty PHP based websites or writing 'Linux apps' other than that, not so great, sorry.