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Re: [News] [Rival] More Leopard Failures Demonstrated

____/ JCrowe on Sunday 09 December 2007 17:33 : \____

> Hi Roy,
> 
>     First of all, thanks for a somewhat rational post, though I am
> wondering having come in the middle, how this relates to Leopard.
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> ____/ Kier on Saturday 08 December 2007 21:15 : \____
>>> Can you actually verify that? It would be nice to believe it, but franlly,
>>> I can't.
>> 
>> Kier, while overall use is difficult to gauge, proportional growth is a
>> separate thing. 2 or 3 recent extensive surveys have shown that the number
>> of participants has doubled. Those who conducted the survey concluded
>> (perhaps not safely) that the number of GNU/Linux user has doubled in one
>> year. Some Web statistics--while they fail to show actual absolute and
>> correct figure of usage (
>> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3687616 )--show the same
>> type of trend (a statistical sample with Linux doubling, but you have to
>> extrapolate). Recently, a top man at Novell said that about 50 million
>> people
>> use Linux on the desktop. Do the math. Last year,  Ubuntu alone claimed
>> system updates from 12 million. Ubuntu was not as popular at the time.
> 
>     I hope that Linux continues to thrive and that it continues to offer
> an alternative to Windows and MacOS X. I use Linux part time and I
> consider it an excellent platform for some of the things I do. My
> main platform is still a pair of Macs running Tiger because the things
> I do on a daily basis are well packaged, implemented and available in
> that arena. I guess I'm in the stats from Ubuntu because I always update
> when there is a new version.
>> 
>> There will always be Microsoft-backed entities like IDC and Gartner trying
>> to confuse users and developers. Users will be fearful, developers will
>> think that it's not worth developing/porting to GNU/Linux (chicken-and-egg)
>> and the whole scenario is, well... akin to global warming denial and part of
>> a Big Lie coordinated campaign for all I can tell. Just look at the FUD
>> which came from IDC (Microsoft-funded in disguise) just ~3 weeks ago.
>> Classic! They create uncertainty and hope to reverse the trend of enormous
>> Linux adoption.
> 
>     Though you could have left this piece of paranoia out along with the
> bit of smear job about parties who have legitmate questions about the
> political motivations of the IPCC et al.
> 
>> 
>> About the desktop, let 'friendly' sites like Yahoo give away their logs, but
>> it misses the broader picture and the many issues (see URL above). It also
>> leaves out _niche_ sites. In one of my sites, more visitors use Linux than
>> Windows (based on something like a million hits a month).
> 
>     Could you clue us in about the content of your website which receives
> more Linux visitors? If it was a Linux oriented website, for instance,
> such statistics would make a lot of sense, and would show a bias which
> one would expect. I'm not here to defend Windows. I simply wonder if one
> can extrapolate actual Linux usage from this type of data. What type of
> analytical software are you using for your websites?

Let's begin by considering how Web statistics get gathered for studies which
strive to show browser/O/S installed base. Here you have some companies that
receive the log files from various sites/Webmasters that they have an
agreement with. In other cases, with site meters and certain type of
XSS 'spyware' (Google AdSense and Google Analytics, for example), you have
something that collects data from PCs that allow JavaScript to run, don't
forge HTTP headers, and don't have AdBlock. In the former case, the sites that
are willing to give away their logs are, in my opinion, site whose visitors
care less about privacy. Linux users are, on average, more concerned about
such issues (Groklaw won't touch Google AdSense for that reason alone, let
alone track usage). In the latter case, rarely will you see a company like
Google giving away the statistics it collects (which suffer from many problems
anyway). So, all in all, the nature of statistics and the fact that
certain /types/ of populations choose to visit certain /types/ of Web sites
(no equal distribution) are factors that leave you with lies and damn lies.
It's easier to measure growth, but not to obtain hard numbers.

The statistics are as valid as you wish to believe they are. I have some
academic background in statistics, so I've seen people cooking 'studies' or
presenting results where they are aware of weaknesses. Just look at IDC and
Gartner any day. Even financial analysts...

-- 
                ~~ Best of wishes

Roy S. Schestowitz      |    "Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand"
http://Schestowitz.com  |  Open Prospects   |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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      http://iuron.com - knowledge engine, not a search engine

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