Easy, they wouldn’t. Thus Linux market share must be higher than Nett Applications reports, or it wouldn’t be worthwhile.

Notice this is a UK site where we would expect Linux usage to be low. Seems to be a site about cycling mostly, which might skew the figures some, which way not sure. The approximate sum of linux users for this site (5200 hits or more) is approximately 6%. This is a lot more than the 1% from Net Apps.

Now Net Apps may not be the M$ Shill that I believe they are, but still, the evidence in their favor is not good.

Now Silverlight and Mono, and why M$ wants it. It more than just the patent club and trap I think, although that maybe a reason or the main reason. M$ wants us to think that GNU/Linux desktop use is tiny, tiny enough that home users will not try it. A percentage of home desktop market share is worth Billions to M$. So using and controlling a survey, like they have with just the facts sites in the past, is nothing new to this company.

While M$ wants us to think that Linux desktop use is still very tiny, ask yourself “why?” Wouldn’t Linux get more commercial apps and games(and drivers) for it if companies seen that it was much larger than Net Apps claims?

Even Steve Ballmer has said that Linux is the main competition of M$. Not Mac as much. So why Mono then, beyond the patent trap? Could it be, that M$ knows the real numbers of Linux users, and needs it silverlight running on the Linux desktops, in order to have any chance at all of competing with Adobe Flash? But yet at the same time, M$ doesn’t want to be seen as “porting” silverlight to Linux itself, so it uses Novell to do its dirty work to infect Linux with its crappy buggie software. Only place that silverlight is being used is Netflix in volume. Could it be because the CEO of Netflix is also on the board of directors of MSFT? Follow the money.

“Here at Boycott Novell”

Words cannot describe how irrelevant that is, so it’s hard to see why you even bring it up. Wasn’t W3C Schools reporting something like 40% market share for Firefox a few weeks after it was released?

“although there could be HTTP header modification because some people wrestle with stubborn IE-only Web sites”

Ah yes, I remember how the Mozilla market share was “under reported” because of this… until it was no longer necessary because of actual market share and suddenly no one was using it as an excuse anymore. You’re about three years behind the curve.

“we wrote nothing about what may be correct.”

No, because preferences and gut feelings have no bearing on reality.

“(subscription needed)”

Lol, and on the previous post you’re referencing, you whined about the Hitslink data being evil-y hidden behind a paid subscription.

But I take it this data would validate your gut feelings? Funny how there isn’t a single person in the FOSS community willing to fork over $1,000 to settle this? I mean everybody’s writing about how their numbers are wrong, but no one wants to figure out how right they are? Imagine those numbers in Shuttleworth’s hands! Or RedHat! Or IBM! For a measly few thousand dollars!? Of all the people at all the companies that purchase the Hitslink data, not a single FOSS advocate or simply concerned Linux user has ever leaked the fact that the Linux market share in Germany or Thailand is 45%! I think that’s amazing. Don’t you?

“I believe that the all the ZDNet figures were spot on.”

Ha, ha. Of course they do. But where is the proof? Not vague claims of evil doings, not gut feeling, but proof?

“As our reader amd-linux (from Germany) put it earlier today:”

In response to a post by me, which like the previous one on this topic I referenced, you cannot bring yourself to reply to. Does logic make you nervous? Or is it just me? Oh well, at least you’re not pasting silly red text to my posts anymore. Somebody got called on that, eh?

Readers can decide for themselves what the installed base of GNU/Linux really is. We only present some evidence here.

Yes, because at the beginning of the post you say:

It is always very, very important to check where the money comes from.

Right.