From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Per Abrahamsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: How Many Emacs Users? Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 14:48:55 +0100 Organization: The Church of Emacs Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <878yiw8aox.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com> <7illmw3pfb.fsf@neoscale.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1077458512 31955 80.91.224.253 (22 Feb 2004 14:01:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 14:01:52 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Feb 22 15:01:46 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AuuB0-0001dT-00 for ; Sun, 22 Feb 2004 15:01:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1AuuAg-00089U-FR for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 22 Feb 2004 09:01:26 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!uninett.no!news.net.uni-c.dk!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 32 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: sheridan.dina.kvl.dk Original-X-Trace: news.net.uni-c.dk 1077457077 31919 130.225.40.227 (22 Feb 2004 13:37:57 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.net.uni-c.dk Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 13:37:57 +0000 (UTC) X-Face: +kRV2]2q}lixHkE{U)mY#+6]{AH=yN~S9@IFiOa@X6?GM|8MBp/ Mail-Copies-To: nobody User-Agent: Gnus/5.1003 (Gnus v5.10.3) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:fIkBz5JIzSAvooZ2btD66GpTK38= Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:121121 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:17071 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:17071 David Kastrup writes: > At a time where the average Emacs user compiled and installed his > Emacs by hand, the mailing list numbers might have still had some > relation to the actual user numbers. Back then the average Emacs user was student at a university, where the sysadmin compiled and installed Emacs on the big, central shared computer. Or if they were progressive, on the big, central shared NFS server. Your other estimate was better, judging by various pools, among those Unix users who care what OS they are running, that is today mostly GNU/Linux enthusiasts, I guess it is 50% vi(m) users, and 40% Emacs users, and 11% other[1]. What is hard is to estimate how large a fraction the non-enthusiast fraction of the GNU users constitute these days. The people who use a GNU/Linux + StarOffice + Mozilla setup because of the freedom or price benefits over a Microsoft or Apple box with similar tools, but don't really care about the Unix personality. These are unlikely to participate in pools. And I suspect they constitute most of the growth in the GNU desktop market share. Anyway, I take a shoot and say half the users are currently in that silent "other" category, which give an estimate of one million Emacs users. The real number is probably within one or two orders of magnitude of that. Footnotes: [1] Numbers may not add up to 100% because of rounding, despite being made up for the occasion.