Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 15:25:15 -0700 From: David Greenman <dg@root.com> To: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net> Cc: jak@cetlink.net (John Kelly), chat@FreeBSD.ORG, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Andreessen: Linux use growing Message-ID: <199804252225.PAA22549@implode.root.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:47:57 CDT." <199804251747.MAA11660@dyson.iquest.net>
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>> >Evidence of this is in the WC CDROM sales figures for Slackware >> >Linux where growth has slowed from exponential to linear. >> >> Interest in Slackware has waned. Redhat and Debian have taken its >> place. Concluding that FreeBSD is growing faster than Linux, based on >> Slackware sales at Walnut Creek, seems to be wishful thinking. >> >I don't think that DG is saying that Linux is shrinking, but the rate >of increase in growth is decreasing. (Remember derivatives, in high >school? :-)). I'm not saying that the size of Linux is decreasing, only that their growth rate is decreasing. I'm just passing on what I've heard/read Linus say about a year ago: that Linux growth was starting to flatten out a bit to what was starting to look more like linear than exponential. I suspect, but have no sales figures to back it up, that Redhat growth remains nearly year-to-year exponential, and that it is the deceleration of growth in other Linux variants that has made growth of Linux overall less than exponential. Actually, you can ignore what everyone has to say about growth of Linux, because noone really knows the answer to that. The same can be said about FreeBSD growth, for that matter. One more thing, if you really want to look at something interesting that we can perhaps build on, then look at the success of FreeBSD in Japan. There are 20 titles of FreeBSD books on the bookstore shelves and FreeBSD is considered to be at least as popular as Linux there, with an installed base estimated at more than 200,000 (this number comes from Japanese trade magazines). -DG David Greenman Co-founder/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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