Billions of devices were sold. Many run Linux.

According to one source that I came across, only 2% of the chips (processors) target desktops.

Let’s look at this CNET article from 2002 (http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-940713.html)

1 billion PCs shipped worldwide since the mid 1970s:
81.5 % Desktops
16.4 % Laptops
2.1 % Servers

Of those 2.1% that were servers, 60% could be have been running Linux (or some other Unix variant). Impressive, but only when looking solely at servers and ignoring the rest.

This is why Linux can be called obscure, because like many, including Dan Geer, I was looking at the entire spectrum of computers when I used this adjective.

GNU/Linux is not obscure. It powers many servers for example.

“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux…”

–Steve Ballmer (September 2008)

What I find cute, is his argument that windows is a security risk because of it’s dominance. I actually agree with this, but it is in direct conflict with many Linux zealots who claim that Linux security does NOT come from it’s obscurity. Maybe just sweep that one under the carpet.

Also, as noted by another comment below, ReactOS is alpha software. I’ve used it myself. It’s not stable enough, nor is it compatible enough to be used for anything serious, much less a full replacement for WindowsNT based systems. Your comments tend to suggest you have no practical experience using ReactOS, but since it’s not made by Microsoft that automatically makes it superior.

Dan Geer is well known to his peers.

Vint Cerf’s actual estimate was between 100 and 150 million. That’s a pretty rough estimate, and it’s safe to assume this was done without any real research.

The 40% figure was repeated by several news publications, but again, none of them questioned the reliability of this figure, nor did they compare it to other estimates.

It is a shame to hear that ReactOS is not “ready”. It looks good in Wikipedia. It will be nice when ReactOS is a reasonable substitute for W2K or XP for VM legacy program support.

Hey, Go-ooo is also in the list of summer of code-benefited projects.

Look no further than TomTom and FAT.

Yeah sugar wants more Mono.

But Wine is more of a complement, not an environment to crucially rely on. ReactOS uses Wine too.

There’s really no excuse for this. As covered by the link above, M$ likes to blame the user. They also like to blame the “popularity” of their OS, but exploits peculiar to Vista and Windows 7 prove this a lie because both have low market share and prospects of gaining any. M$ has had all the money in the word for decades and they proclaim each new version of Windows to be safe for commerce. Their continued failure to make an OS that people can trust can be attributed to their tremendous arrogance and the non sustainable nature of non free software as a development model. For decades they have ripped off the software world and crammed the pieces into their ancient Windows framework. Others have done better with free software, even at creating DOS (Free DOS) and Windows (ReactOS). Shame on M$ for squandering their position and everyone else time and money.

The highly respected Mr. Geer set his estimate at 25% several years ago.

Around 2007, Vint Cerf said that his estimate was 150 million. This was covered in many publications including the BBC.

The 40% figure was covered in several publications including USA Today.

Competitors like Damballa suggest 3% to 5% of enterprise assets are compromised by bot-driven targeted attack malware. Others like PandaLabs report an 11% infection rate across the board. These seem to be much more sensible figures. How do you account for these discrepancies? When a company is selling security, can you really trust them to tell you just how safe you are without their paid protection?