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Re: Q for the Candidates: How many users?



On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 05:19:20PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Hi *,
> 
> Bearing in mind:
> 
>   * www.debian.org/social_contract says Debian's "priorities are our
> users and free software",
>   * popcon.debian.org currently reports 91,523 submissions,
>   * popcon.ubuntu.com currently reports 1,493,440 submissions, and
>   * that this is something of a trick question,
> 
> What's your estimate of the current number of Debian users?

Raw guess: around a million.
- Installations != users
- Not all users install popcon
- Installations on mainframes or LAN servers usually have several users.
  I'm not going to count web server users (then the whole Internet-using
  world is probably a Debian user), but if they have an account on the
  system, I think you can call them a 'Debian user', even if they don't
  know.

Given that, a ratio of 10 users to one popcon result seems more or less
appropriate

> (Or, if by the time you've read this some of the other candidates have
> already responded, how would you adjust their estimate/s?)

None of them have, apparently. Would be interesting to see that, though
:-)

-- 
The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters
works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is
trying to fool the system.
  http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html

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