Comments on Linux and Free software: Its about the market share.

I agree that market share is important, but it is ...

2009-09-08T11:10:31.013-04:00

I agree that market share is important, but it is not the most important thing. What good is an OS with dominant market share but filled with secrets, patents, lies, insecurities, control over users, and attempts to lock in customers? What good is a GNU/Linux system without its fun, wittiness, diversity, competitiveness, and freedom? True, we may appeal to some more proprietary vendors that way, but for what?

I think that the battle for market share will be about replacing the current industry with a new one. Nowadays, technology vendors are too spoiled with secrecy. Most of drivers are proprietary for no good reason; most of services do not specify what is done to users' data; the world "commercial" is understood as synonym to "proprietary". We must first change that, THEN claim significant market segment. Again, what good is a popular but restricted OS? (we have plenty of them already)

Lot of companies are taking interest in Linux for ...

2009-09-07T18:48:36.192-04:00

Lot of companies are taking interest in Linux for one reason. Most Linux users turn out to be the ones that advise the Windows users on what software to install and what hardware to buy.

So it turns out supporting Linux can in some cases double sales on Windows.

The 'market share' is not important for Li...

2009-09-07T12:44:51.827-04:00

The 'market share' is not important for Linux, because it is rarely sold at retail.

The significant metric is the 'installed base' - the number of machines running the OS.