Measuring Adoption
Measuring the adoption of Linux on the desktop is a difficult proposition and has caused controversy as to how many users there actually are.
As Linux systems are typically downloaded, copied and distributed for free, the usual methods of tracking sales numbers do not apply in gauging numbers of Linux desktop users. This use of website counters to identify operating systems also does not produce reliable numbers, due to such factors as:
- individual websites do not attract a representative sample, due to their content.
- spoofing of addresses.
- problems tagging identification strings as to Linux or even distribution results in high numbers of "unknown operating system".
- identifying computers that operate from behind proxies.
- the multiplying effects of botnets which tend to create the illusion of more insecure PCs, running Windows systems.
- the fact that not all PCs are connected to the internet and used for web browsing.
- one download could result in none or whole site installations
Read more about this topic: Desktop Linux
Famous quotes containing the words measuring and/or adoption:
“Man always made, and still makes, grotesque blunders in selecting and measuring forces, taken at random from the heap, but he never made a mistake in the value he set on the whole, which he symbolized as unity and worshipped as God. To this day, his attitude towards it has never changed, though science can no longer give to force a name.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Frankly, I adore your catchy slogan, “Adoption, not Abortion,” although no one has been able to figure out, even with expert counseling, how to use adoption as a method of birth control, or at what time of the month it is most effective.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)