Mikroschoft heeft gisteren de 960% jaarlijkse groei (volgens Mikroschoft) van het aantal Linux gebruikers gebruikt als onderdeel van de verdediging in de anti-trust rechtszaak tegen MS. The Register heeft er een artikel over:
Linux rears its head again as Microsoft's Exhibit A in the argument as to why there's plenty competition in the OS business, really. Richard Schmalensee's testimony cites it on numerous occasions, points to an annual growth rate of 960 per cent since 1991, and says Linux in 1998 had 7.5 million users.But hold hard there, folks. 960 per cent annual growth rate has a pretty spectacular impact on that 7.5 per cent. With our faulty maths (you Linux guys out there are good at this stuff, mail us) we'd figure that should take Linux past the 50 million mark within three years.
As he says, "The growth of Linux exemplifies the exceedingly low barriers to entry in the software business. Linux is a version of UNIX that was written by Linus Torvalds while he was a college student in Finland. He posted an initial version of the source code on an Internet site in 1991 and invited people to develop the program further. Many programmers accepted his invitation. As Forbes Magazine noted, 'Within a year Torvalds' software had taken on a life of its own.'"
