Observations on the growth of Linux use

Ah, statistics! How we love to deceive ourselves with them! Sometimes we tend to forget they are numbers applied to measure a reality, but they are affected by many variables. Therefore, statistics become a useful prediction, but a prediction is, ultimately, a guess nonetheless.

I am saying this because, since I migrated to Linux in 2009, I have been listening to Windows fanboys chanting that "according to Netmarketshare and StatCounter, Linux accounts for a skimpy 1% of the total market". And the funny thing is that they believe it!

My eyes, however, show me a different picture. When I migrated, the only Linux computer I ever saw was mine; I never spotted another computer running the Penguin OS in public. During the last two years, however, I've run into students who have Linux computers... but Netmarketshare has kept saying that Linux usage is 1% in 2009, 2010, 2011 and, yes, you guessed it, the first two months of 2012, too!

W3counter.com is another source that is frequently quoted to say that Linux represents a 1% marketshare. Notoriously, in 2009 it said Linux was 2% and then declined. Right now, W3counter is showing a gradual increase (1,67%).

It seems that Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, did not believe those numbers. Back in 2009, as he was giving a presentation to investors, he showed a slide that tells a different story. Wisely, he did not include any numbers (not to disclose critical information and scare investors away, I presume), but the pie chart indicates that Microsoft either:

1. Tried to minimize Apple (the shares of "Apple" and Linux are virtually identical)
2. Believed Linux accounts for more than the never-changing 1% that Netmarketshare and StatCounter keep measuring since 2009.
   

Who would you believe, then? I would go for Ballmer in this case: one would expect him to have more reliable data as he was addressing investors, don't you think?

If we take Ballmer's pie chart as reference, then Microsoft believed Linux had a marketshare of around 5% in 2009, judging from the graph proportion.

W3schools.com throws numbers onto the table that match Ballmer's pie chart (and his statements that Linux was worrisome): When Windows 7 retail was released (October 2009), W3schools' Linux count showed 4.2% marketshare and that number has kept going up to 5% in February 2012.

Another interesting observation is the behavior of Distrowatch. Yes, yes, I know that you are going to say that those numbers cannot be taken as an accurate measuring. Point well taken. However, Distrowatch count shows that either:

1. The same group of Linux users is keeping track of distros more closely (visiting distro pages crazily and bumping up the count), or
2. More people are actually clicking on distro pages.

The latter scenario shows more interest in Linux which, in turn, suggests an increase in Linux use, especially when one pays attention to the last distro reported (#100). Let us see: in 2009 it was MOPSLinux (73 clicks). CD Linux took the spot in 2010 (86 clicks). For 2011, DreamStudio got the #100th position with 90 clicks. During the last three months of 2012, that same position belongs to LFS, with 131 visits.

That means that the last position in Distrowatch jumped from a two-digit number to a three-digit one. If we take that merely as an indication of interest in Linux, then it has increased in a 55.6%.

This matches the reality I see more accurately, the same one that Ballmer inadvertently described in 2009. One wonders what his numbers will show today.

Microserfs and the Future of Microsoft

I started this interesting novel by Douglas Coupland. The book is entitled Microserfs and it manifests Geek culture by depicting the lives of several coders who work for the software giant in Redmond. Along with the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, in which one can see the origins of Microsoft, this book has given me a lot to think about...and I am only on page 40!

The novel shows how MS employees developed a certain "Microsoft culture" that happens to be very interesting. Of course, corporate culture is nothing new, but there are certain factors that acquire an undeniable notoriousness (not to mention a somewhat prophetic glow) when one considers that the book describes the reality of the 90's.

The first factor that I saw is the omnipresent figure of Bill Gates (B-B-B-B-B-B-I-L-L!) that gravitates in the minds of the characters and determines their motivations and actions: They walk in certain way if they believe that B-B-B-B-I-L-L is watching them; Bill's biomass becomes a separate category on MS Campus (19% humans, 0.003% Bill), and they feel both depressed and honored when they get a scolding email from him, to illustrate. This made me think about what Microsoft is today, a feudal land without the lord everyone admired.

I must admit that the leadership of Bill Gates has turned him into a mythical creature, just like a unicorn or a pegasus. True, there are tons of Gates jokes around, but, in general, I get the impression that Gates is treated kindly. I mean, he is caricaturized and everything, but his eternal Geek aura has protected him from vicious graphic representations, even after the disastrous release of Windows ME (Millennium Edition, jokingly nicknamed "Mistake Edition"). I understand that the last Windows project he was involved in was Windows XP, released in 2001 after he retired. Therefore, Windows XP vindicated his honor and he left the company in triumph.

Microsoft is in now under the leadership of Steve Ballmer. Microserfs deals with Ballmer as a rather second-class respect figure. Once again, the prediction became true. Ballmer's first OS was... yes, you guessed it: VISTA! Accordingly, Ballmer's image as a leader has eroded terribly. You don't believe me? Run a quick search of videos under "Steve Ballmer" in Youtube and you will understand. He is depicted as a rather laughable, tempestuous, and big-mouthed version of the Cobra corporate twins in the G.I.JOE cartoon series, Xamot and Tomax. Nobody would say with reverence "B-B-B-B-B-B-allmer!" Judging from popular depiction, when referring to Ballmer, people are more prone to saying "B--b-b-ozo!" Plus, the use of the first name does not help him, either. When one says "STEVE" in the computer world, the image that is conjured is that of Apple's Steve JOBS!

No wonder why Linux is becoming more popular under Ballmer's dinasty.