[ILUG] How much is Linux used?

[Paul O'Malley]

At the beginning of last year there were figures which showed the Mac
and Linux to be both adding up to about 6% with Linux being in the lead.

If we take it that that trend has continued as we can if you look at
Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSE and Fedora activity, measured by irc questions,
one finds that the level of technical expertise has decreased in irc,
with an implication that more 'Joe Bloggs' are using Linux.

If you check out amazon you will see that Linux books sell.

Thanking Firefox for its hard work has no doubt paid a dividend to
Linux, after all it shows what is out there. OOo is also in the queue
for helping get the Open Source message out.

Freedom Toasters (use www.google.ie to find out what they are), are
starting to populate places where broadband does not.

A subscriber based on-line magazine http://www.tuxmagazine.com has after
three issues over 50k subscribers.

Money made by HP and IBM show that sales are happening in the Linux arena.

Looking at Ireland, we have several companies that are quietly working
away selling Linux solutions to customers. Some of those sales are
desktops.

The quickest way to show someone Linux in my opinion is to download
Kanotix (www.kanotix.net) burn it and give it away. A live CD that
installs.

Do a search for this:
Ubuntu with windows magazine
What you want to find is examples of Windows Magazines showing how to
install Linux, and giving away copies of Linux CDs.
You will be surprised, there is growth and it is gaining momentum. When
people see what is coming with windows07/vista then I think you will see
some people saying, 'thanks Bill, but no thanks, I got a new supplier'. :)
Oh and I noticed that there has been proof of concept virus code and
methods discussed for vista already. All that money and the primary
focus is security, yeap I can see how closed systems really work well :)

After all the one thing that people do not like being told is, 'you must
do X' and DRM is saying you don't own that which you buy. Turning
computers into dumb inflexible devices is not a future that customers want.

Regards,

Paul