From: hta@uninett.no (Harald T. Alvestrand)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: Counting Linux users: an attempt
Date: 30 Sep 1993 22:07:17 GMT
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Matt Welsh)
Message-ID: <28flal$sm3@samba.oit.unc.edu>
Hello,
there have been many attempts at defining the size of the Linux
user base. None of them contained hard data.
Now, in an attempt to establish a lower limit on the number of
Linux users, I have put up a MAIL SERVER that does counting.
So, if you are a Linux user, and want to be counted, send an E-mail
to the address
linux-counter@uninett.no
with the subject being one of
I use Linux at home
I use Linux at work
I use Linux at home and at work
I do not use Linux
The scanner looks for the words "home", "work" and "not" to determine
where you use Linux, and sends you back an ACK that includes the current
state of the count.
The whole subject line is kept, along with your FROM address; if you
want to change your opinion, just send another mail to linux-counter.
DO NOT SEND VOTES TO MY MAILBOX!
PUT YOUR VOTE IN THE SUBJECT LINE, NOT THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE!
The Reply-to: line of this message is set to the counter, so you may try
to just juse "reply" to this message.
The current count (after announcing it on comp.os.linux.misc for 1 day,
and on no.linux for 2 days):
Total 236 users
BY COUNTRY
56 edu 35 com 28 no 26 de 18 uk
13 nl 9 se 9 gov 7 fi 6 ca
4 at 3 dk 2 bitnet 2 unknown 2 is
2 us 2 fr 2 net 2 org 1 au
1 jp 1 nz 1 za 1 tw 1 cz
1 mil 1 ch
PROBABLE DISTRIBUTION OF PLACES WHERE LINUX IS USED
160 at home
55 at home and at work
11 somewhere
8 at work
2 not used
DISCUSSION:
I know that any counting mechanism is biased. And given what Linux is,
no mechanism will get registrations from those who don't want to be counted.
There are also a number of ways to confuse the issue, such as:
- Mass registrations from bogus accounts (aka Usenet "votes")
- Junk registrations of "I don't care what Linux is" and such things
- Trying to estimate the number of non-"voting" persons
But after a week or five of this, I will have a number, and we can start
debating whether that number is interesting or not.
Have fun voting!
--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
G=Harald;I=T;S=Alvestrand;O=uninett;P=uninett;C=no
+47 7 59 70 94
My son's name is Torbjxrn. The letter between "j" and "r" is o with a slash.
--
Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu
From: hta@uninett.no (Harald T. Alvestrand)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: Linux user count passes 2000 users
Date: 7 Oct 1993 21:46:20 GMT
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Matt Welsh)
Message-ID: <2922nc$76o@samba.oit.unc.edu>
(To get included into the count, send an E-mail to linux-counter@uninett.no
with one of the subject lines:
I use Linux at home
I use Linux at work
I use Linux at home and at work
I don't use Linux
You will get an E-mail back saying how your vote was counted)
LINUX counter status, as of Thu Oct 7 10:31:59 MET 1993
Number of messages processed: 2162
Number of current votes : 2064 (98 revotes)
Number of Linux users : 2029 (35 non-users voted)
PROBABLE DISTRIBUTION OF PLACES WHERE LINUX IS USED
1300 62% at home
505 24% at home and at work
156 7% at work
68 3% somewhere
35 1% not used
BY DOMAIN
496 edu 303 com 291 de 124 uk 88 ca
80 nl 73 au 70 fi 51 se 51 no
38 net 38 gov 37 at 35 dk 27 org
26 fr 20 ch 19 unknown 15 za 15 uucp
14 be 13 mil 11 it 8 jp 8 us
6 bitnet 6 tw 5 pt 5 ie 5 pl
5 nz 5 es 4 hk 4 il 4 is
3 hu 3 br 3 co 3 cl 3 gr
2 su 2 si 2 ee 1 mx 1 cz
1 cs 1 th 1 hr 1 ro 1 gb
1 in
BY COUNTRY
(I like sorting by #/population, because that puts Norway near the top :-)
Country #Linux MPop Lin/M
============================================================
Iceland 4 0.3 15.7
Finland 70 5.0 14.0
Norway 51 4.3 11.9
Denmark 35 5.1 6.9
Sweden 51 8.6 5.9
Netherlands 80 14.9 5.4
Austria 37 7.6 4.9
Australia 73 17.1 4.3
Germany 291 79.1 3.7
USA 885 249.6 3.5 edu,com,gov,mil,org,us
Canada 88 26.6 3.3
Switzerland 20 6.7 3.0
United Kingdom 125 57.2 2.2 uk,gb
New Zealand 5 3.4 1.5
Ireland 5 3.5 1.4
Belgium 14 9.9 1.4
Estonia 2 1.6 1.2
Slovenia 2 2.0 1.0
Hong Kong 4 5.9 0.7
Israel 4 6.3 0.6
South Africa 15 30.2 0.5
Portugal 5 10.3 0.5
France 26 56.2 0.5
Greece 3 10.1 0.3
Taiwan 6 20.3 0.3
Hungaria 3 10.5 0.3
Chile 3 13.5 0.2
Croatia 1 4.8 0.2
Italy 11 57.7 0.2
Poland 5 38.4 0.1
Spain 5 39.5 0.1
Czech Rebublic 1 10.0 0.1
Colombia 3 34.3 0.1
Japan 8 123.3 0.1
Czechoslovakia (former) 1 15.7 0.1
Romania 1 23.2 0.0
Brazil 3 158.2 0.0
Thailand 1 57.6 0.0
The World (somewhere) 78 5000.0 0.0 net,int,bitnet,uucp,unknown
Soviet Union (former) 2 147.4 0.0
Mexico 1 81.4 0.0
India 1 844.0 0.0
Comments:
* YES, I know that this count is a severe undercount, because
a) not all Linux users can send E-mail
b) of those that can send E-mail, a lot don't read c.o.l.announce
Nevertheless, this count has already passed the previous largest real count
of Linux-interested people (the c.o.l split vote, which had 1842 votes).
* YES, the allocation of "com" to the US and "bitnet" to "the world" is
more or less arbitary. I will think about getting a better split across
countries in a week or two, but at least, we get an idea.
* I don't think letting people register others into the count is a good
idea. How shall we know whether two people are registering the same friend?
* I count users, not machines. BBS users, who neither know nor care that
their BBS is running on a Linux system, should probably not be counted,
while "dialin UNIX" users with E-mail access probably should be. I will
think about counting machines some time later (probably not before November).
* So far, at least 38 of the replies from the counter have bounced. This
means that 1.7 % of the mail has problems. I consider this good!
One more word:
PLEASE crosspost the vote request to local newsgroups, BBSes and the like!
I believe many German Linux users (for instance) would read mostly their
"own" newsgroups, and would get the information by such paths.
>From X.400 networks, the addresses
S=linux-counter;O=uninett;PRMD=uninett;ADMD= ;C=no
S=linux-counter;O=uninett;PRMD=uninett;ADMD=uninett;C=no
might work.
Have fun!
--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
G=Harald;I=T;S=Alvestrand;O=uninett;P=uninett;C=no
+47 7 59 70 94
My son's name is Torbjxrn. The letter between "j" and "r" is o with a slash.
--
Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu
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