Linux Could be 3% of Global Desktops. What Happened to Windows?
Freeman writes:
According to one measurement by one firm, Linux reached 3.07 percent market share of global desktop operating systems in June 2023. It's a notable first for the more than 30-year-old operating system, though other numbers in Statcounter's chart open it up to many more interpretations. It's either the year of the Linux desktop or a notable asterisk-your call.
As Statcounter explains, its numbers come from tracking code installed on more than 1.5 million websites across the globe, capturing roughly 5 billion page views per month. Statcounter says it does not collate, weigh, or otherwise adjust its data aside from correcting for bots and Google Chrome's prerendering. Laptops are included in "desktop" because there is no easy way to separate them. And they're subject to revision for up to 45 days after publication.
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Because we couldn't help ourselves, we asked GPT-4 to graph out when, assuming a similar growth pattern from 1991 to 2023, Linux would reach 100 percent desktop market share. GPT-4 told us that, assuming linear growth, "which is a significant simplification and not likely accurate for the real world," it could see the existing 0.096 percent-per-year growth rate average reaching 100 percent in the year 3033.It's worth noting that two other prompts resulted in answers of "January 2121" and "2002." The Year of the Linux Desktop is in the past; it's in the future; it's at 3% or 7.2% or neither; it's global or local; it's impossible and inevitable. It never stops being fascinating [to nerds].
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