WebSideStory Inc. reported this week that Despite Media Hype and Corporate support from big guns like IBM for the Linux OS, Linux's Web usage share remains less than one percent worldwide , indeed less than quarter of a percent (0.24), according to WebSideStory's StatMarket Web development optimization service.

The data research firm says that Microsoft's Windows and Apple’s Macintosh operating systems, hold a combined global Web usage share of more than 98 percent, while Linux has continued to fluctuate between .2 and .3 percent, with no substantial growth.

That seems low; mighty low; and Low End Mac's Dan Knight goes as far as calling WebSideStory's HitBox stats. "statistical lies. " The problem isn't the numbers," says Dan, but how they were derived.... Only sites using "HitBox" software (HitBox is a division of WebSideStory, as is StatMarket) are polled. They may represent 125,000 sites among the millions on the Web, but they are invariably sites created on and often served on Windows machines. You can bet your bottom dollar that Slashdot and Low End Mac are not among these sites."

Dan reasonably deduces that a Mac-oriented site like Low End Mac would tend to draw more Mac users than other sites, and a lower proportion of Windows and Linux users, but his hit statistics show Linux holding a roughly 1.3% share of LEM visits, or more than five times WebSideStory's figure. As he speculates, "Maybe their subject matter just doesn't attract computer geeks, the kind of people most likely to be running anything besides Windows and the Mac OS.... After all, why would Linux users visit a pro-Mac site at about 5x the level they visit general sites? It just doesn't sound right."

No it doesn't, but even 1.3 percent of surfer traffic amounts to pretty disheartening numbers for Linux desktop advocates.

Linux does, even according to WebSide Story, hold a comfortable share of the server market. However, the "Holy Grail," so to speak, for Linux fans has been to break into the consumer and corporate desktop computing market. The effort to make Linux user-friendly has been substantial, with the KDE and GNOME Graphical User Interface projects, the failed Eazel Nautilus venture (which still lives on as a volunteer Open Source project), considerable progress in making easier to install Linux distributions, notably from CorelLINUX (now sold off), Germany's SuSE, Yellow Dog Linux on the PPC front, and recently Mandrake. Then there's IBM spending real money trying to convince businesses small and large to embrace the Linux platform.

However, outside the geek and corporate server worlds, Linux hasn't been able to make much headway against Windows, and to a substantially lesser extent the Mac OS. Now with the ascendancy of Mac OS X, prospects for a desktop Linux breakthrough look bleaker than ever.

Essentially, Mac OS X represents a "user-friendly Linux" -- a robust UNIX core with an attractive and easy to operate superstructure in the form of the Aqua GUI. While OS X and Linux stem from different branches of the diverse UNIX family tree, they share the UNIX attributes that make it such a powerful, stable, and versatile OS, and except for ideological Open Source True Believers, OS X has to a considerable degree removed the raison d'etre for development of a highly engineered and refined Linux GUI -- what Eazel was supposed to be.

OS X, reportedly, is seducing more and more desktop UNIX fans away from the Linux orientation. Witness an interesting report by Kimbro Staken this week on the xmldatabases.org Website, entitled unsubtly: "Mac OS X is the Death of Linux on the Desktop." Kimbro writes:

"There's a real problem brewing for Linux and its quest for desktop legitimacy, the engineer community is abandoning it left and right for Mac OS X. While the true free software advocates will stick with Linux to the death, those who just want to get work done and not fight with the OS are switching like crazy. This is a real problem for software developed as open source because, as these users leave there will be less interest in the OS and the continuing evolvement of the mess of Linux desktop technologies will slow considerably. Linux will continue as a solid player in the server space, but as a desktop OS it's days are numbered. A couple indicators of this, the proliferation of Mac laptops running OS X at technical conferences and the number of OS X favorable posts on Slashdot. I think Apple has hit the right balance of open and closed source development and the tide is turning with Mac OS X stealing from the Linux community... Now that there is an OS that has a true UNIX core, an outstanding GUI and robust application support there is no going back. Any hope for Linux on the desktop is gone."

In a similar vein is a report on oreillynet.com by Derrick Story entitled "The New Mac User." Derrick notes that at the recent P2P conference in Washington DC. he and other attendees were struck by "the proliferation of Mac laptops, especially the iBook. Almost every one of these computers was running Mac OS X 10.1."

Story also cites Nat Torkington, Program Director for last July's Open Source Convention in San Diego, commenting: "I can't remember if I included this in my report or not, but Mac laptops (mostly iBooks) and OS X were very popular at the Think Conference I attended."

Derrick also observes that while the geeky types seem to be adopting OS X (and Apple's back-to-back home run laptop hardware, which surely helps) hand over fist, longtime Macistas are generally slower to do so, presumably due to a heavy investment in the traditional Mac OS which they know and love.

"It's one thing to migrate to Mac OS X if you have a new iBook and no real investment in existing Mac software, but it's quite another for long time users who might want to switch, but who see it as a temporary step backwards in functionality, not to mention the added expense," Derrick notes.

Hmmmm. That sounds like me, although I am finally getting into gear and learning OS X -- and, I'm happy to relate, liking it better and better all the time.

Derrick Story wonders if we are going to see a two-tier Mac community, or are there just different paces of adoption that will ultimately result in Mac users being united again under Mac OS X? I think the latter. I'm not in a big rush to abandon OS 9, which I find still does a wonderful job for me, but I'm also realistic enough to know that as cool new software continues to materialize for OS X while Classic software development interest eventually and inevitably diminishes, those who stubbornly refuse to make the transition are going to find themselves increasingly locked out of the contemporary Mac experience.

Derrick also wonders whether OS X will lead to an increase in market share for Apple. I think it's hard to imagine that it won't, although the magnitude and scope of such an improvement remains to be seen.

It is fascinating to fantasize about the potential for OS X to cut into Windows' hegemony on the PC platform were there a PC port of OS X available, but no one should hold their breath waiting for that to happen. Mr. Jobs has been very emphatic that there are no plans to develop and market an OS X for PC, and he's almost certainly right. OS X for PC would be suicidal for Apple's hardware sales.

Which is one thing Linux loyalists can cheer about. Linux and Linux development simply can't be eclipsed by OS X so long as the latter is dedicated to use only on Apple hardware. The PC platform will remain the overwhelmingly dominant player, and even if Apple succeeds in its goal of doubling its market share, there are still going to be plenty of PCs around to support the Linux platform.

Which is good. I would be dreadfully sorry to see Linux go the was of, say, Amiga, and happily the prospect of this happening is slim to nil thanks to Linux's popularity and utility as a server OS. On the other hand, while I don't expect KDE or GNOME to fold their tents any time soon either, I would estimate that the prospects for a Linux GUI of anything remotely approaching the slickness and refinement of OS X, or even Windows XP, is now almost nonexistent. For the desktop market, Mac OS X is for all intents and purposes the "user-friendly Linux."

Charles W. Moore