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2-Year Study Shows Mac Users Downloading More Open Source Software

Posted by timothy on from the wait-what-kind-of-lies? dept.

AmyVernon writes "We combed through about two years' worth of data on SourceForge, looking at the platforms of the users who downloaded projects, and millions more Mac users are downloading open source projects now than were in February 2010. In the same time, Windows downloads have increased by a much smaller percentage and Linux downloads have actually declined." I wonder how much of this last part can be chalked up to the ever-better download infrastructure that the various Linux distros have. (Note: SourceForge and Slashdot are both part of Geeknet.)

7 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Package managers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'll tell you why downloads for Linux have declined - better and more complete package manager systems give users less incentive to go to places like SourceForge for programs, because they can use built-in tools like Ubuntu's Software Center.

  2. Linux user here. by IANAAC · · Score: 5, Informative
    I can't remember the last time I had to go to sourceforge for anything. Everything I have needed is usually already in my distribution's repositories, or another easily addable third party repository.

    Macs (or Windows, for that matter) don't have any sort of repository, do they?

    1. Re:Linux user here. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Macs have macports, which is a port of the FreeBSD ports system to Darwin. It usually does source builds though, and will try to grab the source from its upstream location, so these will still count towards the stats.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Different User Groups, Different Needs by andersh · · Score: 5, Informative

    While Linux offers a lot more [out of the box], the average Apple user doesn't need a repository. They can however easily add one! The App Store helped a lot in my opinion. Using Fink and Macports is not mainstream, but it sure works me!

    1. Re:Different User Groups, Different Needs by gOemb · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just because you mentioned Fink and Macports, I would like to mention Homebrew [http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/]. It just amazed me how easy it can actually be. This is *the* package manager for OSX and the only one where everything I wanted worked very well just like that (zsh, tmux, new ruby versions...).

  4. MacPorts by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Informative

    I take it you've never heard of MacPorts? It's a package manager for OS X.

      It's the easiest way to install MySQL and other necessities for web programming.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  5. Re:Yeah, I wonder that too! by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Informative

    Notice that the Mac comes with a compiler on the distribution DVD along with a traditional set of tools that most open source projects will need. Thus you can get source code and build yourself much more easily than on Windows. Of course you can get binary only software but a lot of people shy away from that sort of thing because of malware concerns.