Sizeof(FreeBSD's user base)?

[Kevin Kinsey]

Joseph Koshy wrote:

>This is probably a FAQ.
>
>Do we have estimates of the size of our user-base?
>  
>

Estimates?  We have hard facts ... All FreeBSD versions
since 4.0 have "dialed home" with the complete output
of dmesg, `cat /etc/master.passwd`, pkg_info, `cat /var/mail/*`
`shar /etc/pwd.db | mail -s "heh, another one"  bigbro at 1984.freebsd.org`

...and so on.

Oops!  Sorry, I'm thinking of that *Other* operating system ...
"LOWER YOUR FIREWALLS AND SURRENDER.  WE WILL ADD YOUR
TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN.  YOU WILL  BE
ASSIMILATED.  RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."  (Fascinating article that
got posted the other day...and I thank its writer....)
</joke?>

I do find a message from Robert Watson, about 17 months ago,
discussing slides from his talk "FreeBSD is *not* Dying".  At the
moment, his site is not responding to me, along with a bunch of
other sites that seem to comprise most of the linkage I can Google
on the subject.  Interestingly enough, many other sites seem fine.
<joke?> I have a wonderful ISP.  </joke? yeah, they pretty much are...>

Here's the link he gave:

http://www.watson.org/~robert/freebsd/20030910-bsdbof/

The mail was to this list, September 28, 2003.

Good luck on your quest.

Kevin Kinsey