Re: [tlug] Cultural differences

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Pier Fumagalli writes:

 > I beg to disagree. True, Berin might have "stumbled in the wrong bar", but
 > the argument is really "how many bars are out there"???

Enough, it would seem.

 > If instead of looking at a couple of comments you're willing to take into
 > consideration a couple of community statistics,

Heh.  This is my territory, you know....

 > I think you'll realize that the actual number of communities out
 > there are a bit different. Let's take into account (for example) a
 > couple of hosting platform, SourceForge and Google Code:
 > 
 > 12390 C# SourceForge Projects [1]
 > 43355 Java SourceForge Projects [2]
 >  3061 C# Google Code Projects [3]
 >  5631 Java Google Code Projects [4]
 > 
 > In terms of programming language, as far as I can see, we stand Java to C#
 > 3.5:1 on SourceForge and 1.8:1 on Google Code, which is quite indicative of
 > the difference in communities out there (or how many bars can I stumble
 > into, if I randomly choose one VS. the other).

Speaking for myself, I usually have a pretty good idea of what bar I'm
walking into and why.  It's on the way out that I'm stumbling....

OK, so think about the implications of those stats.  Ie, just get
started with the 3061 C# Google Code projects and actually hoist a
beer in each one of them.  Simply in terms of physical possibility
it'll 5 years, more likely 10, before getting out of that group and on
to the Java projects.  Most likely, you'll actually make a few friends
in one or two of the first 100 C# bars and never bother checking out
the rest.

 > But more important, following up on the conversation last night (and closing
 > the parenthesis about Java vs C#) the numbers for Windows vs Linux are even
 > more interesting:
 > 
 > 54625 Windows SourceForge Projects [5]
 > 56268 Linux SourceForge Projects [6]
 >  2605 Windows Google Code Projects[7]
 >  4547 Linux Google Code Projects [8]

I don't see a difference. 

 > It's odd to see how an operating system that captures 90% of the market [9]
 > only captures 50% (if so, according to SourceForge, much less according to
 > Google Code) of the developer community.

Not at all odd, really.  That can be completely accounted for by
ignoring developers.  Regular people simply don't choose Linux when
given the alternative of Windows, and there are a lot more regular
people than weirdo hackers, so Windows dominates in market share.

Open source is important to me.  I definitely would personally pick a
project that runs on Linux over one that runs only on Windows, other
things being equal.  But that doesn't necessarily mean that the
Windows developers don't have good communities, it could just mean
that they build their communities on values that don't float my boat.