So here we are in 2009 and if you haven’t been living under a rock, you know that you are no longer stuck with the choice between just Windows and Mac. A third operating system, Linux, has edged its way into the mainstream, propagated by a passionate group of Linux developers.
Today we are going to examine the growth of Linux from oDesk‘s perspective (oDesk is a marketplace for online workteams), looking at supply and demand for Linux-related freelance work and the geographies it is taking place in.
Today, oDesk typically has 175-200 jobs posted per month with the “Linux” keyword in them. A yearly snapshot of this metric shows serious growth.
| Year | # of Jobs* |
| 2006 | 128 |
| 2007 | 796 |
| 2008 | 2014 |
*Job openings with “Linux” as a keyword
Linux jobs are clearly on the rise, but a more interesting piece of trivia is that there are currently 87 open jobs with the keyword “Linux,” compared to 134 jobs with “Windows” and 43 jobs with “Mac.” This indicates a 32% market share for Linux among new jobs, significantly higher than the 12.7% share of the server market and 1-2% share of the desktop market that Linux owns according to Wikipedia. Of course, to suggest that Linux truly has a 32% market share on oDesk is aggressive; many job posters do not specify that they prefer Windows — it’s just assumed. But perhaps this is a leading indicator of Linux’s continued growth on oDesk.
- Job Market Share on oDesk (linux, windows, mac)
Looking at which countries are embracing Linux, we see the United States dominates in both posting Linux jobs and providing Linux professional services. But, this may be (and probably) is a reflection of the location distributions of oDesk’s buyers and providers.
| Top 5 Linux Buyer Countries | # of Jobs* |
| United States | 511 |
| United Kingdom | 67 |
| Australia | 43 |
| Canada | 41 |
| India | 13 |
*Job openings, last 12 months, with “Linux” listed as a required skill
| Top 5 Linux Provider Countries | # of Providers* |
| United States | 335 |
| India | 309 |
| Russia | 74 |
| Ukraine | 70 |
| Philippines | 64 |
*Providers with “Linux” listed in their profile titles
Finally, let’s look at what Linux distributions, if any, are requested in job postings. We find the following data, which shows that the work is, in fact, spread out between several distributions.
| Top 5 Linux distributions | $ of Jobs* |
| Red Hat | 224 |
| CentOS | 199 |
| Fedora | 166 |
| Ubuntu | 151 |
| Debian | 127 |
*All-time occurrences of jobs with linux distribution keywords on oDesk.
The upshot seems to be that buyers of professional services around the world investing hard cash in Linux-related jobs is a tribute to the platform’s success and credibility. It seems Linux is here to stay with respectable growth compared to other job skill trends. What do you think? The comment thread is open …
linux is more secured , protected from virus,it has more festures than other operating systems
it is a most important side.
Given that this one nearly one year ago, do you happen to have an updated stat?
Linux is definitely on the way up, no matter how much Microsoft and other operating systems are in denial about it. Job statistics is definitely a novel approach at evaluating how popular Linux actually is, and it definitely bears out that the most impressive growth is definitely centered around LInux, with the eventual reflection in adoption figures yet to come. I feel that Windows 7 had better be much better than Vista, otherwise Linux is going to overhaul Microsoft in the not so distant future.
I have just come across this site and it is informative and interesting, Linux will be a hit, I have a friend that absolutely swears by this product.
I have posted a complete how-to for the linux newbs at LinuxBuzz.net
@prithvi Linux isn’t virus free – a computer that executes instructions is a computer that can be affected. It’s just that there’s no point in developing a virus, thanks to its core design.
I guess it’s beginning to make more sense to more companies to deploy their systems on linux infrastructure. But really, were we meant to be surprised by this?
linux is high security compare than other OS and its an open source, without proper knowledge no one access this and cent % virus free OS thats why Linux is dominating in the other OS
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We recently carried out a survey of developers looking into multicore programming, and saw a very large group doing Linux-based development – larger than Windows.
http://www.cilk.com/multicore-blog/bid/8097/Don-t-get-caught-with-your-multicore-pants-down