11.20.10
Gemini version available ♊︎Poll: 25% of BetaNews Readers Are Desktop GNU/Linux Users
What Microsoft says
Summary: Figures suggest that GNU/Linux users are more common than suggested by flawed statistics (gathered by flawed methods with clear data bias)
THE FORMER EDITOR of Microsoft Watch does not want to believe it, but the poll speaks for itself (not providing an accurate measure but a mere data point):
Twenty five percent. Well, 25.82 percent to be exact, so closer to 26. That’s the number of respondents claiming to be Linux PC users in my poll: “How would you identify yourself as a computer user?” The number is seemingly credible: 2,014 votes from 94 countries — 988 from the United States. There are 1,858 unique IP addresses, which along with cookies blocking repeat votes suggests the results are largely clean of Linux enthusiasts stuffing the ballot box, so to speak. Something else: After the poll reached the 25 percent Linux PC threshold, it stayed there even as votes accumulated — that’s another indicator the results are good. But I don’t believe them, certainly not that only 60 percent of respondents are Windows PC users.
The word “belief” or “believe” often implies faith over science (he also uses this word in the headline). Over at Microsoft Watch, back when he was its sole editor there were more comments from GNU/Linux users than from Windows users, says Tim from OpenBytes. It became somewhat of an embarrassment for a site called Microsoft Watch and we talked about it last week in an episode of TechBytes. Here is our Wiki page about market share. █
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NotZed said,
November 20, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Yeah a bit sad – i don’t like the result so it must be wrong? And yet he continues to run polls …
I can’t remember reading much of betanews at any point (i’ve followed a couple of links there), but looking from the first couple of pages it looks like the sort of general ‘tech’ site that would have fairly broad appeal with techheads. And you’d have to expect the usage of gnu/linux to be higher amongst such types.
I wonder if it will alter the site’s direction in any way.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
November 21st, 2010 at 5:17 am
For a period of time they had some limited FOSS focus but hardly anymore.