04.20.11

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Sources of Endlessly-repeated Lies About GNU/Linux

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux at 2:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Net Applications

Summary: The “1% market share” myth and other commons lies that paint Microsoft as just a scapegoat and its critics as “haters”

A firm called Net Applications is being paid by Microsoft and Apple (which are clients or even more) to keep doing its thing, pushing all sorts of figures which do not represent reality in the global sense. As Pogson explains, there is verifiable evidence with which to debunk the claims, namely Apple’s sales figures:

The stats he quotes are bogus. They don’t get MacOS share close and we know them precisely because Apple states unit shipments in it filings with the SEC. 4.143 million Mac shipments per quarter. The world is shipping 90 million personal computers in a quarter. That comes to 4.6% while NetApplications claims 5.25%. Similarly Forbes claims M$ has only a 72% attach rate these days. That leaves 13% for GNU/Linux. If the desktop war is over why is M$ losing share?

Net Applications also used to claim ~10% for Mac OS X. This was halved overnight. This just shows what a joke these figures can be, but it never stops anti-GNU/Linux trolls from pretending that the free operating systems hover around 1% market share. Take for example Internet trolls who go by a name like “hairyfeet”, who is promoting Mono in Slashdot and also posting venomous comments that are consistency hostile towards FOSS. As Pogson explains and shows that this troll is now smearing Groklaw and Techrights too:

One place on the web where my comments on things IT are published is Katherine Noyes, “Linux Blog Safari“. One of the contributors is a troll named “hairyfeet”. I suspect that’s just a cover for his scaly body. Only reptiles could be as cold in his comment about GROKLAW winding up:
“Good riddance, I say,” Slashdot blogger hairyfeet opined. “Groklaw frankly became ‘Boycott Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL)’ in that EVERYTHING had to be an evil plot from Redmond.”

There is a tiny element of truth under there somewhere but it underlies the larger truth that M$ leaves nothing to chance in every release of every product to ensure success in the market and dirty tricks are one of a dozen “check-boxes” on their list of things to do in the year or so before a product is released. As we have seen in Comes v M$ or US DOJ v M$, dirty tricks are business as usual for M$. It is not paranoid for PJ at GROKLAW to look for bugs under every rock because M$ is out to get everyone. That is there prime objective. It is not paranoid behaviour if they are out to get you.

If people like “hairyfeet” do not like Groklaw and Techrights‘ Boycott Novell section, then it says a lot about what harms Microsoft interests. And it probably won’t be long before this “hairyfeet” troll repeats the claim that GNU/Linux has 1% market share — a claim that even Microsoft MVP de Icaza made in USENET. █

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