OS X Lion eclipses Linux among developers
Here’s an odd data point, something the rest of us probably didn’t see coming. Nevertheless, here in North America, more than 400 professional software developers have spoken and they’re not speaking the language of open source or GPL or are they?
Honestly, with Linux’s desktop market share stuck at about 1 percent for years, I would have imagined that more developers had chosen the Mac and OS X years ago. However, Evans Data has surveyed North American code monkeys and discovered that more developers are now using OS X (7.9 percent) than Linux (5.6 percent) as their primary development platform — a first.
“Apple has made tremendous strides in the last few years with innovative products and technologies.” said Janel Garvin, CEO, Evans Data, in a statement. “So it’s quite reasonable to see developers adopting the Mac and its OS as a development environment. Windows firmly remains king, but developers are obviously attracted to Apple’s devices, while at the same time Linux has lost some of its luster after years of only single-digit adoption.”
Yes, of course, the remainder of developers — a mere 80-plus percent — use Windows as their primary development platform.
Who’s your daddy?
Another odd twist in this story is that, although more devs run OS X than Linux, they’re writing more than twice as many Linux as Mac apps. How’s that possible? Well, my guess is because Linux dominates the back office and embedded segments, and there are legions of developers writing those kinds apps.
What’s this say about the notoriously politically correct Linux crowd? They might be stuck writing server apps and vending machine routines, but at least they’re doing it on a Mac…
What’s your take?
August 10th, 2011
I visited the Google campus a month ago and I knew the employees can only choose between Mac or Linux. I expected to see some linux boxes, but I saw none. Many employees walked around with a laptop and all of them were a MacBook.