Ubuntu Founder Closes Famed Bug 1 Report On Waning Microsoft Market Share
In what amounts to a declaration of, "The king is dead, long live the king!," Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth believes Linux has finally dethroned Windows as the world's most dominant operating system, thus prompting him to close the No. 1 bug in Ubuntu. That infamous bug stated that "Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace" for which Ubuntu and other projects are meant to fix.
It's a "bug" that dates back to 2004 and lamented that it was nigh impossible to waltz into a local PC store and buy a machine without any proprietary software. Shuttleworth envisioned a day when the majority of PCs for sale would include only free software, and though Ubuntu is barely a blip on the market share radar compared to Windows, it's a different story when it comes to Android.
"Personal computing today is a broader proposition than it was in 2004: phones, tablets, wearables and other devices are all part of the mix for our digital lives. From a competitive perspective, that broader market has healthy competition, with IOS and Android representing a meaningful share," Shuttleworth stated in a post explaining why he's closing the bug."Android may not be my or your first choice of Linux, but it is without doubt an open source platform that offers both practical and economic benefits to users and industry. So we have both competition, and good representation for open source, in personal computing."
Shuttleworth acknowledged that Ubuntu has "only played a small part" in the shift, but in recognizing that the shift has taken place, the bug is now closed. Does he have a point?
It depends on how you look at it. On desktops and laptops, Windows is still the most dominant OS out there, and that's not likely to change any time soon. But if you want to include mobile devices, which most research firms will say are cannibalizing PC sales, the numbers start to get interesting.
It's a "bug" that dates back to 2004 and lamented that it was nigh impossible to waltz into a local PC store and buy a machine without any proprietary software. Shuttleworth envisioned a day when the majority of PCs for sale would include only free software, and though Ubuntu is barely a blip on the market share radar compared to Windows, it's a different story when it comes to Android.
"Personal computing today is a broader proposition than it was in 2004: phones, tablets, wearables and other devices are all part of the mix for our digital lives. From a competitive perspective, that broader market has healthy competition, with IOS and Android representing a meaningful share," Shuttleworth stated in a post explaining why he's closing the bug."Android may not be my or your first choice of Linux, but it is without doubt an open source platform that offers both practical and economic benefits to users and industry. So we have both competition, and good representation for open source, in personal computing."
Shuttleworth acknowledged that Ubuntu has "only played a small part" in the shift, but in recognizing that the shift has taken place, the bug is now closed. Does he have a point?
It depends on how you look at it. On desktops and laptops, Windows is still the most dominant OS out there, and that's not likely to change any time soon. But if you want to include mobile devices, which most research firms will say are cannibalizing PC sales, the numbers start to get interesting.
