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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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But what will I do if marketshare of Linux does not increase properly? Oh, wait... who cares? I just use Linux for my daily work but are not a shareholder that needs constant massive growth of imaginary numbers.
You may be lucky enough to use Linux for your fault work, but some of are forced to use Windows because it is the industry standard. If Linux were widely enough used that I could use it at work then that would be a huge benefit to me.
That's not wrong but a seperate problem mainly caused by lock-in strategies that are not exactly the same as marketshare or industry standards and are explicitly distinct from the actual OS's capabilties.
I know enough people who have the exact same problem but with Apple as their employer forces them to use software only available there. Yet their marketshare for desktops is just a tiny fraction of what we see for Windows (~15% if we are optimsitic).
So will we pretend that Linux with a 10 or 15% marketshare (not that far off for an OS with already 5+%) is suddenly a valid alternative. Or are we honest and acknowledge that this is indeed NOT about Linux' capability to be a valid Windows replacement but purely about the fact that there isn't (an never will be...) a massive corporation spending billions in marketing and lobbying to create perceived standards simply by throwing money at the problem for even higher future gains?
I think that if Linux had a 50% market share then it would be considered a very valid alternative, even though that is obviously not very realistic (at this point, at least). My comment was more about why a high market share would be desirable than about how realistic it would be to get there.
Having said that: I think that if Linux were to get to a 10% or 15% valid market share, it would be a sign that a lot of things had changed that would have made it a more valid alternative in the process.
You don't need anywhere near 50% market share to be a valid alternative. If anything market share has nothing to do with it being a valid alternative except that it more likely to be the case with higher numbers. Past 50% it is really no longer even the alternative at all - it would be the main choice.
Agreed; I was only arguing against the proposition that increased market share would not eventually make a difference.
Also makes you feel good when Linux opponents look goofier over time.