And that’s a good question that was debated, and settled, during the wonderful OOoCon 2009 that took place in Orvieto . Now you might ask whether someone came up with figures or a precise market percentage. It was not exactly the way it happened. We still (and will always) have real difficulties quantifying market shares for OpenOffice.org .

NetApplications is out with a couple of new metrics of market share for operating systems and browsers, and the news is good for open source. Topping their findings, Microsoft Windows' market share has dropped below 90 percent for the first time in its measurements. The share erosion is largely attributed to increased interest in the Mac platform, but Linux is cited as on the rise as well.

I have always claimed that the widely used Operating System market share statistics from Net applications were not really accurate when it comes to MacOS and Linux market share. In my opinion there were two factors that prevented an accurate Worldwide market share to be produced: Linux browsers potentially ignoring the counter and improper geographical distribution.

As I recently reported, there is an order of magnitude difference between the market share of Linux "out there" in the world, and the market share of LInux on Scienceblogs.com and on this very blog. Subsequently, I was trolled by my very own brother "...

Opinion on the risks of losing track of the goals which distinguish GNU/Linux from other platforms

Reader Chemisor advances a theory in his journal that a linguistic misunderstanding is at the root of many disagreements over different licensing philosophies, in particular BSD vs. GPL. The argument is that GPL adherents desire the freedom of their code, while those on the BSD side want freedom for their projects.

The market share of an OS is important. The larger the market share the more companies take notice and create software and hardware compatible for it.

Windows 7 might not be officially available until October 22, but the latest numbers from W3C show it's rapidly closing on the combined market share of every flavor of Linux.

August has arrived. Time for a browser market share update. There is quite a bit of news this month, which, depending on your view, can be modified in virtually any direction you prefer. Microsoft likes the version in which IE has gained market share and pushed back Firefox and Chrome.