So, how many unique Ubuntu users are there?

[murderslastcrow]

K, well, I'll start off by linking to this article where they say "we're pretty sure it's 8 million plus," nearly a year ago. http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3780651

Also recently, Mark Shuttleworth said something along the lines of, "we can't ship an LTS version with unstable blablabla to about 10 million users," and this in an interview about Gnome 3. I can't find this interview, but I can honestly say I read it in a high-platform blog (linked to from linux.com).

So, we also have almost 1 million registered forum users (913,838 registered users as of this typing).

So, I was looking for more solid statistics since there isn't any unique IP identification going on with the repositories right now. I have a very good idea that Google may finally release their numbers for operating systems when Google Chrome OS finally comes out next year.

Either way, I luckily came across Fedora's statistics for unique YUM IPs. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics#Yum_Data It states 15,553,979 Unique IPs.

Now, although some people mask their IP so it sends a new one every time, for the most part this means unique users, if I'm not mistaken.

Also, this isn't obviously an exact or empirical idea, but if we mete the distrowatch's rating/popularity system and use it to create statistics for the users of Ubuntu, Ubuntu has 139% of the same number.

So, with this very visionary PREDICTION of the numbers in relation to solid statistics from Fedora, It would seem that Ubuntu has 21,620,030.81 unique users. Apparently one of them's missing a shin, but that's cool.

What are you guys' thoughts on this? Do you think this is at all accurate? And considering we have a minimum of nearly 1 million users, do you think having solid numbers for this is a good idea? What implications would empirical data for users have on the computer industry?

[scragar]

Users don't want to give away solid details, I downloaded 1 ubuntu CD per release, then used it to install 5 or 6 machines, most of which aren't mine, so that increases the number, but you also have users who download linux and decide it's not for them, or use ubuntu for a while and then try another distro and like that more. Any figures you get are fairly unstable, but I'd say it's at least 10 million for ubuntu.

unless you've got a good reason I wouldn't bother even trying to guess the number of users.

[murderslastcrow]

Well, I'm only looking for how many people have installed it on their computer, whether they still use it or not. Since that's the same number the other companies who do sales go off of- installations, not how many people actually use it.

I think people might take open source and Linux more seriously if there are good numbers. There may be more options for games, commercial software used by professional artists, etc.

Then again, I think we could just wait it out until everything in open source is good enough to move the market into a different perspective of what you can do with software (mainly getting a sastisfactory video editor along the lines of an evolved PiTiVi).

Of course, there is plenty of commercial software for Linux already, and it's not really in our face at all. I think it can be a good thing.

Well, I think I'll go with at least 10 million, as well, since 8 million plus was what they said a year ago, and Mark basically alluded to 10 million in a recent interview.

I think that's a really good number.

[MikeTheC]

I'm not unique; I'm just like everyone else.

</sarcasm>

[alienclone]

i'm not unique; i'm just like everyone else.

</sarcasm>

+1

[beercz]

All of them are unique.

[juancarlospaco]

Every Ubuntu user are unique.

[sudoer541]

K, well, I'll start off by linking to this article where they say "we're pretty sure it's 8 million plus," nearly a year ago. http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3780651

Also recently, Mark Shuttleworth said something along the lines of, "we can't ship an LTS version with unstable blablabla to about 10 million users," and this in an interview about Gnome 3. I can't find this interview, but I can honestly say I read it in a high-platform blog (linked to from linux.com).

So, we also have almost 1 million registered forum users (913,838 registered users as of this typing).

So, I was looking for more solid statistics since there isn't any unique IP identification going on with the repositories right now. I have a very good idea that Google may finally release their numbers for operating systems when Google Chrome OS finally comes out next year.

Either way, I luckily came across Fedora's statistics for unique YUM IPs. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics#Yum_Data It states 15,553,979 Unique IPs.

Now, although some people mask their IP so it sends a new one every time, for the most part this means unique users, if I'm not mistaken.

Also, this isn't obviously an exact or empirical idea, but if we mete the distrowatch's rating/popularity system and use it to create statistics for the users of Ubuntu, Ubuntu has 139% of the same number.

So, with this very visionary PREDICTION of the numbers in relation to solid statistics from Fedora, It would seem that Ubuntu has 21,620,030.81 unique users. Apparently one of them's missing a shin, but that's cool.

What are you guys' thoughts on this? Do you think this is at all accurate? And considering we have a minimum of nearly 1 million users, do you think having solid numbers for this is a good idea? What implications would empirical data for users have on the computer industry?

I think most people will freak-out if someone attempts to count ubuntu users. They are scared about their privacy. I am sure if people wanted to count Linuxes it would have been implemented years ago. But again people are scared to death when it comes to COUNTING aka privacy invasion. Another thing, people hate being counted because Microsoft counts its windows licenses and they dont want to copy Microsoft's evil tactics. anyone agree?

btw how does Mozilla count its Firefox users? <------ good tip?:lolflag:

To be honest with you, I actually like your thoughts and ideas. remember Linux market share= more users= more software= more support= success.