FreeDOS doubles its market share to 0.00002%: still negligible

FreeDOS doubles its market share and nobody notices

What is the point of a 1994 operating system with a command-line interface doubling its market share and going from 0.00001% to 0.00002%? Statistically, none. Culturally, something more: it is a symptom of discontent with modern software.

FreeDOS, the free MS-DOS clone, lives on for a minority looking for a minimal system, with no telemetry or advertising. Its recent rise has once again raised a recurring question in the world of personal computing. While some see it as a sign of hope, a resistance against the bloatware of systems like Windows 11, others dismiss it as an anecdote going nowhere. Some even recall that next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop, a joke that is already three decades old.

The history of desktop software is full of these niches. Before Microsoft bought QDOS from its creators and turned it into MS-DOS, there were already simple, open systems that today live only in nostalgia. Windows 11, with its vast amount of spyware, bloatware and exclusion of non-obsolete systems, has made many wonder whether the future might not lie in the past.

But the 0.00002% share is what it is: an insignificance. FreeDOS is not going to return to homes, let alone servers. Its rise, from 0.00001% to 0.00002%, is the equivalent of a green light for the retrocomputing car: it moves forward, but at a estimulante ilegal nobody will ever register. And yet, there it is, doubling its presence in a world that seemed to have forgotten it. Perhaps that is exactly what bothers people. Meanwhile, we keep waiting for that year of Linux on the desktop.