In StatCounter’s latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, “unknown” accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely.
In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%. Now we’re talking.
See, this shit is why insisting on “GNU/Linux” is actually important. It’s the copyleft and the end user freedom it provides that matters, not the kernel.
Sabotaged Linuxes like Android just don’t cut it and shouldn’t count.
The kernel is copyleft (100% of it). The majority (more than half) of the other software in a typical Linux distro is not copyleft. The most popular license is MIT. Apache 2.0 (the license that Android uses) is pretty common in Linux distros as well.
To top it off. the majority of GPL software has nothing whatsoever to do with the GNU project, starting with the Linux kernel.
Technically, sort of, but GPLv2 isn’t good enough. Stuff has to be GPLv3 (or AGPLv3) to fulfill the intent of protecting the end user’s right to control their machine. That’s the essential thing people are looking for when they choose “Linux” — if it’s a tyrant device like a smart TV that’s subverted to work against the user by showing ads or whatever, nobody gives a shit if it’s running a Linux kernel because that fact doesn’t actually help them usurp the manufacturer’s control.
Usurpation of control is what “GNU/Linux” implies. The fine details of which software has what license isn’t the point; whether the system as a whole delivers on the promise of user freedom is.