download statistics of FriCAS-1.3.8 after 1 month

[Qian Yun]

FriCAS-1.3.8 was released 1 month ago.

So I did some download statistics out of curiosity.

The data was from Sourceforge and GitHub, but I don't think their
statistics number can be compared directly.

Of course these numbers don't include the downloads from various
Linux distro's mirror.

The GitHub numbers are from
https://api.github.com/repos/fricas/fricas/releases/latest

And Sourceforge numbers are from
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fricas/files/fricas/stats/timeline

GitHub Sourceforge Filename
40 37 fricas-1.3.8-full.tar.bz2
22 68 fricas-1.3.8-windows-x64.zip
13 25 fricas-1.3.8.amd64.tar.bz2
3 7 fricas-1.3.8-macOS-x64.dmg
2 6 fricas-1.3.8.i386.tar.bz2


Well, I'm surprised by the high number of windows binary download.
(Of course, most Linux users get FriCAS from distro's package manager.)

I do plan to improve the windows binary before next release.
There are many details not working correctly on Windows, so I'm
also a little surprised that no bug for Windows has been reported.

- Qian

[Waldek Hebisch]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2022 at 05:43:07PM +0800, Qian Yun wrote:
> FriCAS-1.3.8 was released 1 month ago.
>
> So I did some download statistics out of curiosity.
>
> The data was from Sourceforge and GitHub, but I don't think their
> statistics number can be compared directly.
>
> Of course these numbers don't include the downloads from various
> Linux distro's mirror.
>
> The GitHub numbers are from
> https://api.github.com/repos/fricas/fricas/releases/latest
>
> And Sourceforge numbers are from
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/fricas/files/fricas/stats/timeline
>
> GitHub Sourceforge Filename
> 40 37 fricas-1.3.8-full.tar.bz2
> 22 68 fricas-1.3.8-windows-x64.zip
> 13 25 fricas-1.3.8.amd64.tar.bz2
> 3 7 fricas-1.3.8-macOS-x64.dmg
> 2 6 fricas-1.3.8.i386.tar.bz2
>
>
> Well, I'm surprised by the high number of windows binary download.
> (Of course, most Linux users get FriCAS from distro's package manager.)

There were no Windows binaries in several years. So probably
people that used old versions or did not use FriCAS on Windows
took opportunity to fetch new version.

> I do plan to improve the windows binary before next release.
> There are many details not working correctly on Windows, so I'm
> also a little surprised that no bug for Windows has been reported.

My personal guestimate is that less than 1% of users reports
bugs. Some simply drop off and lose interest, some just
live with bugs...

--
Waldek Hebisch

[Qian Yun]

On 7/20/22 21:38, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>> Well, I'm surprised by the high number of windows binary download.
>> (Of course, most Linux users get FriCAS from distro's package manager.)
>
> There were no Windows binaries in several years. So probably
> people that used old versions or did not use FriCAS on Windows
> took opportunity to fetch new version.

Well, IIRC, Maxima (and others) show that there are more Windows users
than any other platforms. I do wonder how many of these Windows
downloads are new users. (And how many of these new users will turn into
long term users.)

- Qian

[Kurt Pagani]

On 20.07.2022 15:50, Qian Yun wrote:
>
>
> On 7/20/22 21:38, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>>> Well, I'm surprised by the high number of windows binary download.
>>> (Of course, most Linux users get FriCAS from distro's package manager.)
>>
>> There were no Windows binaries in several years.  So probably
>> people that used old versions or did not use FriCAS on Windows
>> took opportunity to fetch new version.

This may be an explanation, indeed. On the other hand, I'm wondering why a
Windows 10+ user does not use the blessing of WSL? Still many Win7 users or just
a reluctance to unix like systems?

>
> Well, IIRC, Maxima (and others) show that there are more Windows users
> than any other platforms.  I do wonder how many of these Windows
> downloads are new users. (And how many of these new users will turn into
> long term users.)

Maybe undecidable ;)



BTW: there are 234 pulls of docker images of version 1.3.7 on
https://hub.docker.com/r/nilqed/fricas/. Ralf intended to provide a
fricas/fricas on docker hub (@Ralf: see this as a reminder :).
>
> - Qian
>

[Yuri Vic]

> Well, IIRC, Maxima (and others) show that there are more Windows users
than any other platforms.

This is likely because Windows doesn't have a packaging system, so all users need to go to the website and downloads the software directly.

On the other hand, Linux and BSD distributions have good porting/packaging systems. Each of them downloads the source tarball once, builds a package, and users then install packages using package manager software. One packaging system only downloads the tarball once (or once in a while) while many users are using the software.