Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) [LWN.net]

Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux)

Posted Nov 22, 2006 10:40 UTC (Wed) by ekj (subscriber, #1524)
In reply to: Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux) by aleXXX
Parent article: Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux)

That's a very good and important point.

For us to "win" we don't need to dominate the desktop (or any other niche) we merely need to have a large enough real choice that people can no longer assume that "everyone" has a single OS/Webbrowser/Spreadsheet/Wordprocessor etc.

Personally, I'd prefer a OS-market where no single player had more than half the market, businesses and governments can and do support IE-only with the justification that 80-90% uses that anyway, and atleast half of the remaining ones has it available on their machines.

That justifications obviously doesn't hold if 40% of the population uses a OS for which IE ain't even available.

I don't need domination. I need merely open standards for all network-protocols and file-formats, enabling true free consumer choice.

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Linux desktop domination "just a matter of time" (DesktopLinux)

Posted Nov 25, 2006 8:01 UTC (Sat) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link]

Desktop linux has 'won' when it's gotten enough real world, non-dual booting desktop market share to break a few percentage points.

Mac is around 3%, give or take 1 or 1/2 point, last I've checked Linux US desktop market share is closer to 0 than 1%.

So judging by how mac does, and adding in how attractive open source hacking is to young programmers, my guess is that, at least in the USA, anything over 1% of total desktop market would be enough to create a critical mass.

Then more and more killer apps start appearing first on linux desktop, etc.

Already with a negligible market share it's absolutely amazing to me just how good desktop linux is, so with just a little more, I'd guess that's it in terms of critical mass. No need for 10%, 20%, 40%, I'd be happy with 2-4% real users, not dual booters, not 'my other pc runs windows', but real, demanding, linux only users.