by Mark Rais, senior editor reallylinux.com

In the past State of Linux articles, I began to explore the areas where Linux use was growing rapidly. Most interesting were the many facets of Linux and overall OSS growth in Asia. In my article on Linux in India I reported that OSS would soon become the key factor in how 500 million children are educated.

Moreover, I saw similar positive growth trends in Malaysia and in much of the Asia-Pacific region.

It is impossible to miss the substantial way that the United States retains the firmest and most substantial growth of Linux in the enterprise.

Major corporations in the US are using Linux as foundational infrastructure, including:

• Google.com

• IBM

• Industrial Light & Magic

• Amazon.com

But perhaps even more importantly, across both government and corporate institutions, Linux is no longer referred to as a secondary ingredient or a bleeding edge technology. Instead, today in most of the enterprise server rooms you will find Linux servers playing contently along side a diverse set of others including SUN Solaris, HP UX, and Microsoft Windows servers.

The United States also retains its number one status as having the most new distributions, that can be seen on the Distrowatch list.

You can also find a very good synopsis of the trends for Linux worldwide growth in this (pdf file) thorough IDC report. Note that the US and Canada remain very vital players in this realm.

This can be attributed to the continued innovation and entrepreneurial spirit found in the United States.

In a more thorough examination of Linux website readership logs, it is noted that although the sheer number of countries now using Linux has grown exponentially from 1994, today the United States retains the number one spot for totals, with most referring urls based in either .com and .edu. You can find many of these stats from Linux.org and Alexa websites. Note that the next major Linux readership nation is India.

It is also important to note that many of the most heavily read Linux websites are based in the US, including Linux.org, Linux.com, Linux Journal, Linux Today, and Lxer. Respectively, these websites are currently ranked by Alexa at: 15,437^th, 11,593^rd, 23,506^th, 70,413^th, and 104,505^th. For full disclosure I note that reallylinux.com is ranked as 131,480.

Bear in mind that the growth of Linux use in places like India and Brazil is very noteworthy. But the sheer number of Linux users in the US remains exceedingly high and demonstrates the unique factor that America plays in terms of driving the software and computing industries.

Overall, the United States remains number one in total Linux enterprise server implementations. This is an important factor when evaluating future Linux development, progress, and growth. No matter how you wish to view it, the US will remain a key driving force behind Linux advancement.