02.18.08
GNU/Linux Desktop ‘Market Share’ According to BoycottNovell.com: Around 35%
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
–Benjamin Disraeli
This Web site still delivers over 10,000 pages a day (to human visitors). While operating system usage is very difficult to gauge where Linux is involved (c/f the market share lie), AWStats gives figures based on cases where there is confidence and certainty that the connection is made from GNU/Linux PCs. Here are the numbers:
| Nov 2006 | 41.2 % |
| Dec 2006 | 40.5 % |
| Jan 2007 | 33.2 % |
| Feb 2007 | 32.8 % |
| Mar 2007 | 33.7 % |
| Apr 2007 | 33 % |
| May 2007 | 31.1 % |
| Jun 2007 | 36.5 % |
| Jul 2007 | 30.9 % |
| Aug 2007 | 36.4 % |
| Sep 2007 | 36.6 % |
| Oct 2007 | 36.8 % |
| Nov 2007 | 38.1 % |
| Dec 2007 | 31.1% |
| Jan 2088 | 30.3 % |
| Feb 2008 | 35.6 % |
These occasional drops of ~5% below the average occur when very large spikes (usually event-driven) are included, which means that many ‘outsiders’ come and visit. And still, this is just a lower bound for the reasons cited above.
Now, if only sites such as this were actually included in those surveys that are based on ‘junk food’ sites where privacy of individual visitors is not honoured (because they don’t care)… █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.