I’ve said for a while that Linux cannot possibly claim to have made it (whatever that means) as a desktop OS until more people are using it than Windows 95. Looking at IOL’s technical user statistics as broadly representative of the South African market, December saw 0.7% of our readers using Windows 95 against 0.54% Linux. However, 2005 has seen that sorry statistic righted. There are now more Linux users out there! Windows 95 has sunk to 0.51%, while Linux is racing away at, wait for it, 0.67%.
Perhaps not quite enough to satisfy the year of the Linux desktop proponents (and yes, perhaps it will be 2005 🙂 ), but there is one Open Source light that is showing phenomonal growth. Of course it’s the browser, Mozilla Firefox. 8.33% of our readers now use Firefox, while Internet Explorer is showing a marked decrease, down to 88.84%.
I think your logic is slightly flawed. Fewer people are using Windows 95 because newer MS desktop OS’s are available and MS support for Win95 stopped at the end of 2001. (see http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifewin)
In other words you are claiming victory for Linux because a contemporary OS is beating an OS that is 10 years old…
The only reasonable measure is when a particular Linux release (and not just Redhat or whoever in general) does better than a particular MS release. Until then you’re still in the territory of lies, damn lies and statistics.
Are you saying 0.67% of the market is not worth breaking into ululations?
It was supposed to be ironic (hence the ‘year of the Linux desktop’ reference too, which has been touted every year since about 2001) 🙂