Why do we in the "Linux community" assume prior experience with Windows, or any WIMP interface? At its core, this is a bad assumption for absolutely everyone, proprietary software houses included.

Saying that the Linux version of the Wind U90 gets returned more frequently than its Windows counterpart when ignoring the highly successful sales figures of the Linux-based Asus Eee PC is sort of like saying the Microsoft Zune is the second-best selling portable digital music player while ignoring the fact that the Apple sells like what, like a hundred times or a thousand times more more iPods?

In Gartner's assessment of the server market in the fourth quarter of 2009, X64 servers and blades in particular were singled out as the growth engines. With IDC's similar, but different, report Thursday we learn that the Windows platform was the real beneficiary of the bump in sales.

ABI Research is projecting that in 2009 Linux will represent 32 percent of netbook sales, far higher than the seven percent figure claimed by Microsoft, says a report. ABI also estimates that Linux will overtake Windows on netbooks by 2013, largely due to sales in less-developed countries, says the story.

The practice of selling license exceptions became a hot topic when I co-signed Knowledge Ecology International's letter warning that Oracle's purchase of MySQL (plus the rest of Sun) might not be good for MySQL. As the following article explains, my feelings about selling license exceptions are mixed. Clearly it is possible to develop powerful and complex software packages under the GNU GPL without selling exceptions, and we do this. MySQL can be developed this way too. However, selling exceptions has been used by MySQL developers. Who should decide whether to continue this?

Android has overtaken Windows Mobile and Linux for fourth place in smartphone OS market share with 9.6 percent, says Gartner. The worldwide study of first quarter smartphone sales showed a 707 per cent year-on-year increase in Android sales...

Initially, I was skeptical about Dell's decision to sell selected consumer PCs with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed.

But after a few days of testing, I'm a skeptic no more. And I'm not alone. Dell insiders tell me that the Ubuntu PCs, introduced in late May, are selling well -- though they decline to share exact sales figures with me.

The operating assumption here is that Windows 7 is installed on /dev/sda, the first hard drive recognized by the system, and Linux Deepin 12.06 will be installed on /dev/sdb, the second hard drive.

In October, MSI's Director of US Sales delivered an interesting statistic that Linux netbooks were returned four times more often than Windows versions.