Over the last 72 hours, a very interesting piece of news circulated: according to NetMarketShare, Linux had reached the 6.91 percent of the market. The number later dropped to the 4.83 percent, and several specialized media outlets did not hesitate to record such a change. However, today we discovered that Linux adoption not only maintains its classic levels, but lost 0.3 percent between August and September. What happened?
A recommendation that isn't always sincere
It's a very common recommendation on forums and social networks: “If you have problems with Windows, switch to Linux.” The problem is that in many cases that recommendation is not sincere, and only serves to tell the other person that they are making a mistake by trusting Microsoft. Even so, I believe we all deep down wish for more robust competition from the penguin.
Why doesn't Linux take off?
MacOS is restricted to Apple hardware by its license contract, but that doesn't affect Linux distros. So why don't they explode? The first obstacle, and probably the most important, manifests itself through manufacturers. Windows occupies 9 out of 10 desktops, and it's logical that they concentrate their resources on that operating system. Linus Torvalds was very colorful about it, and although there are companies with broad Linux support out there, it's a point of conflict that was never resolved satisfactorily. Linux's numbers on the desktop are humble, but a couple of days ago something strange happened.
The strange numbers
NetMarketShare updated its statistics and published that Linux on the desktop had reached 6.91 percent of the market, only to later drop to 4.83 percent. That a specific product or technology doubles its presence in just one month catches anyone's attention. Reddit was quick to pick up the news, and so did OMG Ubuntu!, but in both places we find a healthy dose of skepticism. Although there are Linux-based products that have grown a lot (for example, Chromebooks), the change was too abrupt to be true.
The correction
Finally, NetMarketShare published an update and placed Linux at 3.04 percent, down 0.33 points from August. Now, if we take into account that the percentage for May did not cross two percent, talking about evolution is not so crazy. NetMarketShare's big drawback is that its sample volume is too low (if I remember correctly, it's only 40 thousand websites), and it needs to improve it as soon as possible.
