NASHUA, N.H. – Open source devotees aren’t quite as addicted to
Apple as other people online, but they still use Apple overwhelmingly over
other products and systems, a new survey contends.
Web application
developer Eldarion conducted an online survey of people who use and contribute
to open source, people who use open source but don’t contribute to it, and
people who neither contribute nor (knowingly) use open source. 132 people
responded to the survey in March and April 2015.
Nearly three out of four
(73 percent) open source contributors use at least some Apple products.
The majority of open
source contributors (65 percent) use OS X as their main operating system, with
22 percent using Linux and 8 percent using Microsoft Windows.
More than one in two (57
percent) open source contributors surveyed use the iPhone, while 38 percent use an
Android phone.
The top reason given by
open source contributors for choosing Apple was “I like the ecosystem” (33
percent), followed by “dependability” (30 percent), “better than Microsoft” (21
percent), and “other” (16 percent).
For the minority of open
source contributors who avoid Apple entirely, the top reason given was “because
Apple is the antithesis of open source” (50 percent), followed by “it’s
overpriced and not worth the money” (31 percent), “it’s so cool it’s uncool”
(13 percent), and “other” (6 percent).
“Our online survey
revealed some illuminating insights,” said James Tauber, CEO of Eldarion. “By
and large, the open source community is composed of intelligent,
independent-minded thinkers who are also pragmatists. It’s no surprise that a
diversity of opinions were reflected in our survey. The OSS community might
like to gripe about Apple, but the fact remains that most of us still rely on
Apple because we value what the company offers.”
