On Friday 26 August 2011 22:37, Arne Rogde Gramstad wrote: [snip]
> I was hoping I could get answers (estimates) on some > very basic questions about the popularity of OpenOffice > (alternatively LibreOffice ): > - How many users are there of OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice? The best information available relates to the number of downloads from the website. I do not know if this was ever broken down by version number. The best information from a press release is here: http://www.openoffice.org/news/ - Search on "100,000,000" within the page. There are many problems associated with using download number to try to ascertain use numbers: * In the one year quoted in the article many would have downloaded twice as two versions of the program were released in that period. * Many downloads would have been incomplete, some on dialup accounts would have got frustrated with the time it was taking for such a large download. * Some downloads would have been re-tried due to break-offs from the server or errors in the downloaded file. So if i were to estimate the ratio of downloads that result in a successful install i would say ball park 33 - 50%. But there is a further issue: * One download copy can be used as many times as you choose. My partner and I have four computers running OpenOffice.org (OO.o) between us but i only download it once for these four boxes. * Educational institutions and Government Departments may download to a server then install to multiple computers from there. * At work I have installed a thin client network on which one version of the program is running but 70 people routinely access it from their individual logins. * Operating Systems like Linux normally get downloaded with a version of OO.o preinstalled on the ISO. Thus you can count most of the number of downloads of common Linux distributions towards you tally. Linux installs on servers will most often not include OO.o. > - How many of those users do also use Microsoft Office? How many Ford drivers also drive Chevs? Microsoft is the most likely to have this information, but if they were routinely recieving data on installed programs from their Operating Systems there would be a public outcry. The best way to find out would be to poll a user set. But this would be very easily demographic skewed. > - How large large is the fraction of OpenOffice/LibreOffice users > compared to the total market of office software users? It varies from country to country and demographic to demographic. Some governments have actively supported uptake of FOSS software. There are websites showing uptake by government, but these refer to the Open Document Formats (ODF), rather than any given program that uses them: http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=open+document+news&ie=utf-8 You can generally assume those using ODF formats are mainly using OO.o but IBM has a competing product and even Microsoft Office supports it to a limited extent. You may want to rethink your whole direction. I can easily prove that FOSS is taken seriously in todays society. Linux is used on 90+% of the top 500 supercomputers[1]. Apache has been the leading web server software for about 15 years[2]. Apples OSX[3] iOS[3] and Android[4] are built on top of FOSS projects. Many other hardware implimentations run embedded linux which is not advertised openly from refridgerators, cell phones, GPS navigators (Tom Tom) to TiVo. [1] http://top500.org/stats/list/37/osfam [2] http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2011/08/05/august-2011-web-server-survey-3.html [3] http://developer.apple.com/opensource/ [4] http://source.android.com/ -- Michael -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] For additional commands send email to [email protected] with Subject: help
