The Linux Counter website is keeping a list, at least as far back as 1993, of people who use Linux. I’m registered Linux user number 397,108. The estimated number of users is 29 million. But does that include devices like phones and TiVo? Then you get into a problem of deciding what “Linux” means, similar to the problem of deciding what “God” means! In fact, Linux is like God in several respects.

1. As soon as you say “Linux is like this” or “God is like that” or make any statement about it whatsoever, even if its agreed upon by 13 million people, one person will stand up and contradict you and say they have a special revelation. This is often done by re-defining the meaning of a word in the claim such as “god” or “Linux”, which was vaguely defined to begin with. The English language then ceases to be a public participatory activity– a different version belongs to each tiny faction who think their version of English is the correct one. But get this– they’ll often claim the other 13 million will back them up.
2. The disagreeing person is really talking about something else, because Linux, like gods, takes a million forms for a million different purposes and priorities. There is not one with a better claim to authenticity than the others.
3. Linuxes are like gods in that the biggest competitor is other versions of itself.
4. The “socially-conscious” see it as a way to right the wrongs in the world, and not a form of personal enrichment.
5. The “spiritual-but-not-religious” see it as a form of personal enrichment, and not a way to save the world.
6. God is like Linux because they both have enterprise users who preach the gospel of health, wealth and prosperity.
7. They both have fluffy bunny desktop users who are disrespected by more serious, less casual users.
8. They both have followers who speak in obfuscated tongues. (Who knew Perl hackers could be charismatic?)
9. They both have unbelievers who only show up for worship or the LUG meeting because they like the other members, not because they like what they’re gathering about.
10. They both have believers who don’t show up to worship or LUG meetings because they dislike the other members.
11. Religions and computers both have users who have to sacrifice a chicken to get it working.
12. They both have power users– these insist on a command-line interface, or private prayer with no intermediary priesthood.
13. They both have users who crave the complete sensory experience: a graphical interface, or a big cathedral with rosaries, chanting liturgy, candles, and incense.
14. Religion and computers both have traditionalistic or hide-bound users, who demand compatibility with legacy code and hardware, take whatever is handed down to them, and make frequent calls to a high priest of tech support.
15. They both have the mobile phone/TiVo/PDA users. At church, these are the ones who neither know nor care about the intricacies of the spiritual world, just as you tend not to care what operating system your phone or video recorder is running, just so long as it works.