Linux Desktop Market Share: Greater Than One Percent?

May 05, 2009, 09:01 (3 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Bruce Byfield)

"Alternatively, you might prefer -- as I do -- to question the statistic's accuracy, and look at other ways to estimate GNU/Linux's presence.

"The problem, of course, can never be settled with any certainty. GNU/Linux comes from dozens of vendors and community projects, rather than a single corporation, and, since it requires neither registration nor activation, a single DVD could be the source of half a dozen installations. Under these circumstances, any estimates quickly trail off into speculation whose credibility depends on your own biases on the subject.

"Still, if other estimates may be too high, we have good reasons for thinking that NetApplications figure to be inaccurate, just by looking at the statistics provided. To start with, by separating out figures for Android, you could say that NetApplications has actually under-estimated the size of GNU/Linux's market share by .07% -- a small amount, to be sure, but a reminder of how easily such figures can change with your assumptions."

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