Download/sales/usage statistics?

Zoltan Boszormenyi zboszor at freemail.hu
Sat May 20 18:57:53 UTC 2006


Kwan Lowe írta:
>   
>> my wife writes her essay on product and promotion relationship
>> on a freely chosen subject and she chose Linux. Specifically,
>> she would like to select one version of a distribution and collect
>> sales or download statistics during its lifetime. Is it possible
>> to find such info about e.g. Red Hat Linux 9? It's old enough,
>> it has reached EOL officially. Or about a later community distribution,
>> such a Fedora Core 3, which is also EOL.
>>     
>
> I'd expect that sales information for FC3 would be almost entirely useless since it
>   

Yes, I know that. :-) That's why I asked about RHL9.
(If a Red Hat insider would drop me a mail, that would be nice.
 Thanks in advance. ;-) )

However a download/month statistics about FC3 ISOs
during its lifetime would roughly be enough if only
a goodwilling admin of one of the high volume mirrors
would provide me with this info. Multiplying it with
the number of mirrors worldwide would be a good approximation.
My wife desperately needs these numbers to back her essay. :-)

> was not a "commercial" product. For RHL9, my gues is probably 10% of usage was
> bought or downloaded from RedHat itself and the rest was copied or on mirrors. There
> are some surveys that might give you some information. E.g.:
>
> http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2127420238.html
>   

Thanks, good chart. Although it represents a minority of a minority.
(Linux users who also reads http://www.desktoplinux.com vs number of 
actual answers.)

> The uptake of Linux reminds of a scene in Frank Herbert's "Dune". At one point they
>   

Great book it is, indeed.

> are debating just how many Fremen are on Arrakis.  The problem is that they're all
> in the deep desert, not likely to participate in any census, and seem to be
> multiplying out of sight. That their numbers were grossly underestimated by the
> powers-in-charge was no surprise. :D
>   

Oops, I haven't though about it that way. Good analogy. :-)

Best regards,
Zoltán Böszörményi




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