On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 11:12, Jim White wrote:
Mike Hearn wrote:
Supposedly Mac OS X already has the largest installed base of any single *nix distribution...Actually, according to figures from Apple and IDC (guess which is more neutral) desktop Linux has at least double and possibly quadruple the installed userbase of MacOS X. I have pointed this out several times when people make statements such as that, and have yet to be refuted, ...
Do you have any references for those statistics? The thing that IDC just said is that they expect new Linux desktop shipments to pass new Mac OS X shipments within the next year or two. Even if that comes to pass (which I very much doubt), that doesn't directly address the installed base size.
The only stats I personally find compelling are those from Google: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-sept02.html
I've been waiting oh so long for that to tick from 1% to 2%; that will signal the beginning of the desktop revolution to me. Sadly, I think Google rounds up generously, so I suspect it will be a while before we even have a legitimate 1%.
Jer