We see the nearly 33-year-old OS’s market share growing 31.3 percent from June 2023, when we last reported on Linux market share, to February. Since June, Linux usage has mostly increased gradually. Overall, there’s been a big leap in usage compared to five years ago. In February 2019, Linux was reportedly on 1.58 percent of desktops globally.
It’s been not that long since most of Windows installations in Russia were pirated ones, with MS updates turned off (in case they try something).
There’s a popular opinion that MS liked it this way - they get just as huge a userbase as everywhere else, and they don’t have to change pricing policy to make it affordable in ex-USSR.
I’m not sure if there’s point to talking seriously about Western software licensing in China.
My point is that numbers won’t get higher for such reasons.