On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 3:22 AM, harrismh777 <harrismh...@charter.net> wrote: > This is very difficult... and I'm not dodging the ball here... its just > the truth. The 'market share' data are bogus. Reason? ... because the free > software 'market' is not a market.
This is just word-play. It has no bearing on the accuracy of the data, because the data are not necessarily based on sales. > It is not measured in any way, and it is almost impossible to determine > therefore in any accurate fashion. There > really are no data... what we need here is a census of sorts. There is at least one method of measuring it without resorting to sales figures: logging user-agent data from web browsers. Is it perfectly accurate? Of course not. But there are a number of different organizations that do this, sampling hundreds of thousands of different websites, and they consistently report that the various versions of Windows have a total usage share ranging from 80% to 90%. That at least gives us an upper and lower bound with a great deal of confidence. In the same data, Apple systems range from about 7% to 15%, and Linux musters a meager 1% to 3%. > IE is dead. It is flat dead... almost nobody is using it... > > The market data are worthless in this discussion, because free software > and free software platforms are not measured in the 'market'. Did you actually look at the links I provided you with? FOSS browsers are absolutely represented there. Again, that data is not based on sales! It is based on user-agent logging. > Please allow > me one more anecdote... I have purchased several machines over the last ten > years... all of them preloaded with Windows (something) and all of them > running IE (something). NONE of those machines ever saw the light of day as > "Windows" machines. I purchased the hardware *only* recovered my cost on the > M$ license, and quickly loaded my linux system of choice... and I've used > them all, believe me. > The point here is that the 'market' data would show that my machines were > purchased, installed, and running... activated even. Wrong! The data that I am talking about would report those as Linux systems, provided that you use them for web-browsing. Otherwise, it would not report them at all. > ... just eggs and ham... Give me a break !!! I don't even know one > person who has Win7 installed, running, and likes it... not even one. I have it installed and running, and I like it for what it is. An easy-to-use platform with a wide range of software options that requires little time investment from me for installation, configuration, and maintenance. I would not and do not use it for everything, but I am able to appreciate the convenience. So now you can say that you know one person. Cheers, Ian -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
