| 2015-10-26 22:09:24 |
Alex Baggott |
description |
Metrics for estimating the relative market share and adoption of GNU+Linux seem to be lacking reliability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#DESKTOP) and I, for one, am sick of hearing the 1 % figure thrown around, largely because it seems to be false.
Naturally, Ubuntu doesn't collect much information about the machines on which it's installed, but the webpage from which users download Ubuntu could ask them to volunteer some anonymously. I'd like to suggest that we include a self-reporting section at the point of download to produce a metric to estimate the number of installations of Ubuntu. Of course, the total number of downloads of Ubuntu doesn't serve as a metric for the number of installations of Ubuntu because included in it are the numbers of repeat downloads of the same version and of downloads intended merely for curiosity, but we could ask for information to draw out these numbers.
On the Ubuntu download page (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.3&architecture=amd64), there could be two or three questions to answer, which could either be optional or not. Something along the lines of:
Is this the first time you've downloaded this version?
o Yes o No, I'm re-downloading
Are you trying out a live image or is this for installing?
o Just trying it out o For installing o Haven't decided
If the answers to the first two questions are "Yes" and "For installing", respectively, then maybe there could also be something like this:
On how many computers do you intend to install Ubuntu?
o 0 o 1 o 2-5 o >5 o Many for an OEM |
Metrics for estimating the relative market share and adoption of GNU+Linux seem to be lacking reliability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#DESKTOP) and I, for one, am sick of hearing the 1 % figure thrown around, largely because it seems to be false.
Naturally, Ubuntu doesn't collect much information about the machines on which it's installed, but the webpage from which users download Ubuntu could ask them to volunteer some anonymously. I'd like to suggest that we include a self-reporting section at the point of download to produce a metric to estimate the number of installations of Ubuntu. Of course, the total number of downloads of Ubuntu doesn't serve as a metric for the number of installations of Ubuntu because included in it are the numbers of repeat downloads of the same version and of downloads intended merely for curiosity, but we could ask for information to draw out these numbers.
On the Ubuntu download page (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.3&architecture=amd64), there could be two or three questions to answer, which could either be optional or not. Something along the lines of:
Is this the first time you've downloaded this version?
o Yes o No, I'm re-downloading
Are you trying out a live image or is this for installing?
o Just trying it out o For installing o Haven't decided
If the answers to the first two questions are "Yes" and "For installing", respectively, then maybe there could also be something like this:
On how many computers do you intend to install Ubuntu?
o 1 o 2-5 o >5 o Many for an OEM |
|
| 2015-10-26 22:09:57 |
Alex Baggott |
description |
Metrics for estimating the relative market share and adoption of GNU+Linux seem to be lacking reliability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#DESKTOP) and I, for one, am sick of hearing the 1 % figure thrown around, largely because it seems to be false.
Naturally, Ubuntu doesn't collect much information about the machines on which it's installed, but the webpage from which users download Ubuntu could ask them to volunteer some anonymously. I'd like to suggest that we include a self-reporting section at the point of download to produce a metric to estimate the number of installations of Ubuntu. Of course, the total number of downloads of Ubuntu doesn't serve as a metric for the number of installations of Ubuntu because included in it are the numbers of repeat downloads of the same version and of downloads intended merely for curiosity, but we could ask for information to draw out these numbers.
On the Ubuntu download page (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.3&architecture=amd64), there could be two or three questions to answer, which could either be optional or not. Something along the lines of:
Is this the first time you've downloaded this version?
o Yes o No, I'm re-downloading
Are you trying out a live image or is this for installing?
o Just trying it out o For installing o Haven't decided
If the answers to the first two questions are "Yes" and "For installing", respectively, then maybe there could also be something like this:
On how many computers do you intend to install Ubuntu?
o 1 o 2-5 o >5 o Many for an OEM |
Metrics for estimating the relative market share and adoption of GNU+Linux seem to be lacking reliability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#DESKTOP) and I, for one, am sick of hearing the 1 % figure thrown around, largely because it seems to be false.
Naturally, Ubuntu doesn't collect much information about the machines on which it's installed, but the webpage from which users download Ubuntu could ask them to volunteer some anonymously. I'd like to suggest that we include a self-reporting section at the point of download to produce a metric to estimate the number of installations of Ubuntu. Of course, the total number of downloads of Ubuntu doesn't serve as a metric for the number of installations of Ubuntu because included in it are the numbers of repeat downloads of the same version and of downloads intended merely for curiosity, but we could ask for information to draw out these numbers.
On the Ubuntu download page (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.3&architecture=amd64), there could be two or three questions to answer, which could either be optional or not. Something along the lines of:
Is this the first time you've downloaded this version?
o Yes o No, I'm re-downloading
Are you trying out a live image or is this for installing?
o Just trying it out o For installing o Haven't decided
If the answers to the first two questions are "Yes" and "For installing", respectively, then maybe a question like this could appear:
On how many computers do you intend to install Ubuntu?
o 1 o 2-5 o >5 o Many for an OEM |
|
