[ale] Linux numbers

[Todd Graham Lewis]

While most everyone's seen The Linux Counter and its estimates of
world-wide Linux usage, including me, I had not before this evening seen
Redhat's page on the topic, which does not use TLC numbers.

http://www.redhat.com/redhat/linuxmarket.html

They, too, put the number at 3-5 million users world-wide, which more
or less jives with the TLC numbers, although they were derrived from a
different angle.  Here are some of the more interesting points:

   It is our experience that the majority of our customers have not used
   UNIX previously. Our registration system survey indicates that 56.2%
   of Linux users have not previously used UNIX(...)

This is, I think, very, very promising.  Linux is not only a refuge for
old-time unix hacks who want a more-free alternative, but is actively
drawing in new users, indeed a majority of Linux users being in this
important category.  (The number of experienced unix users being, of
course, finite compared with the number of non-unix users.)

            Red Hat's Official January 1997 Estimate of Linux Users

   In summary, based on the above methodology and our own rough feel for
   these numbers, we estimate to within a margin of error of +/-25% that
   there are between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 active Linux users.

   It is interesting to compare this figure our rough estimates of the
   numbers of Linux users in past years:

   end of 1993 100,000
   1994 500,000
   1995 1,500,000
   1996 3,000,000 to 5,000,000

Extrapolating this growth curve out to today (factor of three increase
every year) yields some scary and not-quite-believable numbers (as in,
6-10 million users), but this might simply be my M$-brainwashed-mind's
inability to come to grips with incipient world domination.

Semper victoria.

-- 
Todd Graham Lewis       Manager of Web Engineering    MindSpring Enterprises
(800) 719-4664, x2804             Linux!               tlewis at mindspring.net