Bonum Certa Men Certa

Come What May

All-time low for Microsoft's common carrier

Windows in May 2021

Summary: Although gains are made by us in terms of market share, let's remember the threats posed by DRM and systems such as Android (nowadays a lot more dominant than Windows); unless we remind ourselves what software freedom means, we'll never truly get there

THE growth of GNU/Linux continues apace. Not too fast, not an overnight revolution, but we're getting there. In the server, GNU/Linux has already won the market. In phones and mobile/portable devices? See the graph above (updated as of the start of June). According to this, Android, which contains Linux, is the most dominant operating system. That same data source says that on laptops and desktops GNU/Linux was at about 5% last month (GNU/Linux 'proper' exceeding the market share of Chrome OS). Climbing fast, whereas Apple and Microsoft continue to move down...



"Let's keep vigilant and not treat the whole thing as a "market share" sport. We need to think beyond such superficialities."But let's not get 'too' excited and focus on operating systems alone. If people move to GNU/Linux just to play some Steam games (DRM), then what? Are we really accomplishing all that we wanted?

Software freedom isn't just a battleground of platforms; many use Web browsers that are Free software, some kind of hybrid, or even something with DRM in it (even Mozilla Firefox). In 2021 we need to remember the original goals and steer the debate in the right direction. Saying things like "big companies now release some code" and hence "Open Source has won" actually says a lot about the goals of "Open Source"... it's perfectly happy with proprietary software monopolies as long as they slap some code at a proprietary software monopoly called GitHub.

The battle isn't being lost, but we're already seeing the next wave of attacks on the FSF (earlier today in GCC). Let's keep vigilant and not treat the whole thing as a "market share" sport. We need to think beyond such superficialities.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day
Links 22/11/2024: Dynamic Pricing Practice and Monopoly Abuses
Links for the day
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024
Gemini Links 21/11/2024: Alphabetising 400 Books and Giving the Internet up
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024