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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!chi-news.cic.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!nickkral From: nickkral@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,alt.os.linux,alt.uu.comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: a monthly FreeBSD magazine (and other *BSD's too) Followup-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Date: 16 Dec 1995 06:48:39 GMT Organization: Electrical Engineering Computer Science Department, University of California at Berkeley Lines: 70 Message-ID: <4atq47$l46@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <4ajc07$sb7@unix2.glink.net.hk> <4as2e7$91r@cnn.Princeton.EDU> <4asrpo$85k@agate.berkeley.edu> <4atie8$hsv@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: parker.eecs.berkeley.edu Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.admin:36094 alt.os.linux:6467 alt.uu.comp.os.linux.questions:5139 comp.os.linux.advocacy:30561 comp.os.linux.misc:75997 comp.os.linux.setup:32628 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10607 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1574 In article <4atie8$hsv@agate.berkeley.edu>, Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@violet.berkeley.edu> wrote: >A number of independant estimates, not conducted by anyone in the FreeBSD >camp, would place the number well above that. Can you please list the source of some of these "independent estimates"? As for the Linux estimates, I present you a list of sources: ***** The Linux Counter ***** The Linux counter (ftp://aun.uninett.no/pub/misc/linux-counter/short): Status of the Linux counter, as of Sat Dec 16 05:03:27 MET 1995 There are 25470 registered Linux users I estimate this as being between 0.2 and 5% of the total number of Linux users, giving the total community size something between 509.400 and 12.735.000 members. [breakdown by country deleted] See ftp://aun.uninett.no/pub/misc/linux-counter/README.ESTIMATES for more info on these estimates ***** Internet WWW Site Survey Development ***** Source: http://www.mirai.com/survey/info.cgi Linux is used by 10% of all WWW sites, worldwide. All BSD varients, however, only account for 3% of servers. (Note: I don't have access to a graphical browser right now, so I'm quoting these numbers from memory. Please go to the source for the most accurate numbers). Since the BSD varients include FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSDI, and a whole bunch of other BSD*s, the number of actual FreeBSD machines would be much lower. >BTW, I frequently hear terms like "1 million users" bandied about for Linux, >which would be a far cry from the 29,000 Linux Journal subscribers you >mention. Not really. Like I said in my earlier post, I'm using the 29,000 figure as a basis for the Linux population size. I figured 0.5% - 5% of all Linux users subscribe to the Linux Journal. I think this percentage is valid, since most Linux journal subscribers hear about the Linux Journal though word of mouth. Those percentages would put the number of Linux users between 580,000 and 5.8 million, which is consistant with the Linux counter numbers. Egghead sells Linux stuff. Barnes and Nobles sells Linux stuff. Almost anywhere I go I can find Linux stuff. The University of California at Berkeley, the home of BSD, has a monthly Linux users group meeting which usually has between 50 and 100 people show up. There is a local UCB Linux newsgroup (ucb.os.linux) which gets more traffic than the equivilent OS/2 newsgroup (ucb.os.os2). There is no FreeBSD newsgroup or user group on the UCB campus. Linux is huge. I can easially see Linux exceeding 1 million users. But I have never seen any numbers regarding the size of the FreeBSD community. I would be interested to see such numbers. I invite you to prove to me that FreeBSD is more than just white noise (static) on the internet. :) (followups trimmed down to get rid of unnecessary newsgroups). Take care, -- Nick Kralevich nickkral@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu