What percent of Linux users are female?

[chrinabuntu]

I don't think it's that stupid a question. It's kind of interesting. Linux to me has to reputation of being a super geeky computer boy thing, and I personally don't know any other females who use it. Even on here I've only seen a couple that are obvious or have stated that they are female.

It's just a question.

[handy]

Why?

Because you can't get an answer to it.

[DZ*]

The problem with stereotypes and empirical generalizations is that they are not always true for all individual cases.

No, it is not a problem, because stereotypes and empirical generalizations are about tendencies rather than about individual cases. "Men tend to be physically stronger than women" is a fact. Rephrase it in terms of percentages of how many men vs women can lift a certain weight and you have something close to the title of this thread. But this fact is not about any individual case, it is about the tendency: a particular woman can well be stronger than a particular man. These types of facts are not useless either. In fact, stereotyping is very much related to abstraction in the way humans think about problems.

[racie]

Because you can't get an answer to it.

Oh come on... you mean we can't just take every single Linux user and ask if they are male or female?

Count me in as one of the female users, by the way.

[handy]

Oh come on... you mean we can't just take every single Linux user and ask if they are male or female?

Count me in as one of the female users, by the way.

So I wonder what the latest accurate statistical update is now?

[Personal Jesus]

My daughter actually has more experience with Linux than windows.

She recently bought herself a netbook. She told me "you are not putting linux on it!!"
She thought she was really missing out not having windows on any of our home computers.

A couple of months ago I setup ubuntu on my daughter's netbook as a dual boot with windows7, after windows had slowed to crawl.

Straw that broke the camels back:
She was unable to print to CUPS shared printer and got pretty mad when I explained that MS simply withheld the ability so people would need to purchase the full version.

She has not booted windows since .

One more female linux user!

My son also uses linux and I'm just as proud of him

That sounds like my future. Seems pretty bright.

Because you can't get an answer to it.

Should we also throw out all those unanswerable philosophical questions that have given life to human thought? just, you know. . . putting that out there.

[handy]

...
Should we also throw out all those unanswerable philosophical questions that have given life to human thought? just, you know. . . putting that out there.

Interestingly enough, the most difficult philosophical questions aren't beyond answering. It is that the answers are impossible to communicate to another.

There is no substitute for experience in the high realms of spiritual knowledge. As Lao Tzu said "The truth that can be spoken, is not the truth."

[MrNatewood]

8.

[CraigPaleo]

I don't think it's that stupid a question. It's kind of interesting. Linux to me has to reputation of being a super geeky computer boy thing, and I personally don't know any other females who use it. Even on here I've only seen a couple that are obvious or have stated that they are female.

It's just a question.

The question isn't the problem. It's some of the answers.

Anyway, those who aren't obviously female are presumed to be male. What if we counted everyone as female unless they stated they were male? You'd end up with a much different picture.

[handy]

The question is not a good one.

Q. How many Linux users are there?

A. No one really knows.

Q. Itemise how many Linux users use each of the variety of devices that Linux comes installed on?

A. Good luck

Q. After gathering the statistics for the above question try to define the percentage of female users?

A. Good luck.