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Borland/Inprise Linux Survey Results
Ronin Developer writes "Borland has just released the results of their Linux survey. The results are somewhat interesting. Check it out for yourself at:
Borland Linux Survey " There's a lot of stuff there about
what Linux users say they want (in general, and from Borland)
What is the most telling question, though, is number 22 - "Currently, the main platform I develop for is...". Windows far out-paces even Linux (which is the closest at only 25% compared to almost 60%). The answers are quickly explained by the fact that they come primarily from Windows developers.
OK. Let's not begin a flame-fest on Winows.
The point here is that many of the Windows developers come from a completely different environment than what spawned Linux. This shouldn't be shocking news. But I do think its being overlooked.
My take on this, which isn't even backed up by an unscientific poll, is that Windows developers are just now looking at Linux. All the market news, conventions, and even Borland's poll has gotten their attention. But they haven't actually looked too deeply into the subject. Linux is unfamiliar waters. Windows developers are not familiar with Linux, its environment, its tools... and most likely, its culture.
What's even more facinating is some of the other questions. Questions involving licensing, source code, development environments, choice of distribution. Many of the answers further show ignorance of the Linux (and Open Source, for that matter) environment... or a very stereotypical "Corporate" view.
There's been talk before on how this attitude would affect the Linux community. Here's an indication that it does, in fact, exist. And it's very likely to interject itself into the Linux world. Is Linux ready? Will Linux change? Or will Linux change the attitudes of developers?
The answers to questions 9 and 11 are a bit puzzling to me; In 9, GTK+ wins out over Qt by 6.7% (boooo), yet in question 11 developing for KDE wins out over developing for GNOME by about 12.7% (yeah). It makes me wonder how informed some of the respondents were if they didn't know that developing for KDE usually means developing using Qt and developing for GNOME usually means developing using GTK+. And yes, I know, this isn't necessarily the case.
It looks like the Delphi devotees came out in pretty good force; I really didn't expect there to be that many Delphi-heads interested in Linux (or vice versa). I expected C++ Builder to be the Borland tool everyone wanted.
Interesting that most users are happy to pay for a development environment. Money well spent in my opinion.
The thing with closed-source dev tools, though, it that you can't fix them, and with dev tools you have a very high percentage of users who could fix problems. I'd be happy to pay for tool improvement (for example, I want diff tools that will only highlight the words that change on a line if it's very similar to the line in the file compared to), but I want the resulting tools open. Figuring out a way to do that practically (and in a way the suits will trust) may be a problem. Open source isn't necessary, but available source (and the right to distribute at least small patches) is.
One possibility might be just that. A tool that uses gcc as the compiler, uses makefiles and the autoconf system and just provides an easy-to-use wrapper for the less Linux-savvy could be quite popular.
Clearly the people who took the survey, a self-selected bunch who are interested in Borland stuff, want Delphi for Linux. I would be stunned, then, if this isn't their main product. Or even better would be a base IDE that can work with gcc-based development and has an optional Delphi "plug-in." I know I'd buy it.
It is nice to see that the main interest is people currently doing mainly Windows stuff that want to do Linux stuff. It's a sign that the growth curve for Linux will continue its steep upwards slope.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
There actually is a company that has an ASP implementation for Linux. I think they advertise on Slashdot occasionally.
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They want to develop for KDE because it's the most pervasive Linux windowing environment. Heck, I'm using it right now.
They probably want to develop using GTK because it doesn't require C++. I know that's my position - I'm much more comfortable with regular C.
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Thank you! At least someone gets what I'm trying to say. This is exactly what happened to me. When the SunPro compiler broke we had over 3 weeks of downtime waiting for them to fix it before giving up and going with gcc. I'll guarantee that I could find someone prepared to fix gcc quicker that at a total cost less than the downtime for the SunPro compiler.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I might consider it if the source was held in escrow, but the conditions for source code release to me would have to be very favourable. It's worth noting that I personally don't have the compiler expertise to be able to fix most problems that are likely to occur anyway. However, if I have the source, I can at least pay someone else that does have the expertise to do it for me.
BTW, it's nice to see that a company like Borland/Inprise still has a sense of humour (re: question 35).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I found it interesting that when asked what desktop they were using, 50% replied KDE, while only 27% replied GNOME. Being a GNOME user myself, I was kind of surprised at how many are using KDE (maybe I'll check it out).
But the real interesting thing was the toolkit question: which toolkit are you interested in developing in? Only 18% replied Qt, while 25% replied GTK. While a good 26% said they didn't know what all this toolkit mess was about.
So it appears (note, this is conjecture) that possibly 30% of the people who use KDE don't know what toolkit KDE is based on. Possibly--I don't want to draw too many conclusions from the numbers.
Why would this be? Do KDE users simply have it easier--i.e. KDE is such a integrated package that knowledge of the underpinnings are not required, etc.? Being a GNOME user, I am very aware of GTK. One, because of the rapid GTK development in the GNOME 0.9 stages, which broke entire versions of GNOME. Two, because of all the initial "political" hub-bub about GNOME being true opne source because of the GPL v. TrollTech/Qt.
What do you think? Is it just numbers, or is there something to this? Why are so many KDE users (almost half in THIS survey) not interested in developing for Qt?
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs."
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Sure, it's a narrow segment, but it's an extremely important segment. Current Borland customers planning on supporting Linux in the future are what they care about. They do not care about Joe Hacker who writes his CLI programs in C using gcc, because that guy is unlikely to buy their product anyway.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Actually, this sample draws from the /. readers. If you look, over 40% of the respondents read slashdot regularly, and it was actually mentioned in the slashdot front page. Despite this possible skewing by Linux zealots who have no intention of actually buying a Borland product for $400, these results still came up.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10