Re: Linux Journal Awards

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:15:56 -0500
Ian McIntosh <ian_mcintosh linuxadvocate org> wrote:

> So either KDE is simply more popular, KDE folks are better organized,
> or the type of user who chooses KDE is the type who frequents web
> sites like those.

Yes, yes, and yes, IMHO.

The "results" are near the 4:2:1 rule for market shares (see the
OpenOffice.org paper). Assuming the rule of thumb holds at least
partially, KDE was the first-mover so they got the 4/7 or 57%, GNOME is
second-mover so we got 2/7 or 28% and the rest is the 1/7 or 14%.

This is also what the Linux Journal presented: KDE got two votes for
each GNOME vote.

> What we know for certain is that all the government and corporate
> GNOME installations aren't represented in these polls.

You're right, business and government users don't do this sort of polls
but young user do! They are used to forums and polls. This hints to an
interesting hypothesis for a survey:

 "KDE users are - on average - younger than GNOME users."

> Or in other words, "What Luis said."

IMHO, young users also matter for institutional users like cooperations
or government because that's future staff that needs less training.

Additionally, what I keep wondering: Would an institutional user know
what GNOME is? What would they say to somebody 'knocking on their door'?

> Why don't we make an effort to publicize future polls so at least all
> the GNOME guys can vote, if they want to?

IMHO, the Linux Journal polls, as well as the LinuxQuestions.org poll
gets advertised early enought. Given the strong opinions about KDE vs.
GNOME I like to assume the results are rather accurate for the sub-group
of their readers.


Claus