There are a few problems with trying to get accurate Linux numbers:

1. Many Linux users dual-boot with Windows, so do they count as 1/2 a Linux user? Or do they get counted twice (once for Linux, once for Windows)?

2. Linux doesn't have any sales figures for home users (and even for many servers), unlike Mac OS X and Windows.

3. Many Linux users choose to mask or hide their online identities, either for anonymity or to get proper functionality from certain Internet Explorer-only websites.

4. Many Linux users have multiple computers (so does each computer owned count as a Linux user or is that one person a Linux user?).

Perhaps we should create a massive [Chinese] spam campaign that installs a bot-net to infect with http://sourceforge.net/projects/statix/ and track Linux desktops?

Our concept of the culture of China and "linux use" is based entirely upon our American consideration that every family (and individual) has a "personal computer".  In China, it's more common for only a small percentage of the upper middle class families to have ONE  "personal phone", smartphone or tablet.  

Computer ownership is now at about 4-5% of the worlds population. However with many social projects putting computers in villages in developing countries between 12-14% of the worlds population have access to a computer. Approx 3-5 % of the worlds population have internet access.   To put this into context only about 25% of the worlds population sleep in their own bed at night and only about 30% of the worlds population are rich enough to have a bank account!

 China's "Internet population" is touted to be 415.6 million. This figure includes people who access the Web through Internet cafes or public computers and smartphones.

Scientific and development based internet use (therefore much of Linux) is strictly controlled in China.

W3Counter http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php has linux use as 1.8 %, of course that's not China.




On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:06 PM, mike enriquez <mylinux@cox.net> wrote:
Does anyone on the list know anything about the status of Linux in China?

I wonder if linux is big in China?

Thanks

Mike Enriquez



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