Windows vs *nix vs OS X

In response to last week's post, Wichert Akkerman pointed out that he thought the Windows installers always showed more downloads than Unix-based ones.  He suggested that I dig around for the actual numbers.  Never one to turn down a challenge, I extracted the numbers from Launchpad and took a look around. 

Turns out, there are some anomalies.  The data for 2.5.x are probably incomplete due to the changeover to Launchpad several years ago.  Also, Plone 3.2.1 shows almost 700,000 downloads of the Windows installer.  Plone 3.2.2 shows almost 200,00 downloads of the unified installer for *nix.  If we take the data "as is," the graph looks like this with 3.2 dwarfing everything else.

If we remove the 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 data, assuming those to be some sort of outlier, the graph looks like this. 

Either way, Wichert is right--the Windows installer is being downloaded 3-4 times for every download of the unified installer.  Only 2.5 shows the unified installer outperforming the Windows version.  BTW, OS X is always under 10%, and for most versions, under 2%. 

I leave it as an exercise for the student to interpret all this.  Does this mean lots of people download the Windows version to test the product before installing on a Unix box?  Is Enfold Systems with it's toolset aimed squarely at Plone for Windows in the sweet spot for Plone consulting?  And what is going on with downloads for 3.2.x?  Your thoughts, please. 

Plone 4 Released

It's been a red-letter week for Plone with the release of version 4.0 on Wednesday.  Typically, Wednesdays are average days at Plone.org, but this week we saw 2.5 times the normal traffic as visitors flocked to the site.  Since then, site visitor loads have been 1.5 to 2 times daily averages. 

Downloads for Plone 4.0 are significant also.  Since this week's release, almost 6,000 downloads have been logged at launchpad.net.  That's about 10% of the lifetime download total for 3.3.5.

Interestingly, the installer for Windows (.exe) is being downloaded about twice as frequently as the unified installer (.tgz) for Unix-based systems.  That will probably change with time--right now people seem to be downloading to their Windows desktops and taking 4.0 for a test drive.

The press has been good for this release with CMS Report, CMS Wire, The H Open, and MacNN all running the news in English.  Several foreign language press releases have turned up, too.  Of course, Plone shops are spreading the word as well with Jon Stahl, Enfold (including a link to the 4.0 user's guide), and Six Feet Up getting their material out the door first. 

I should reiterate Jon's note over in the Evangelism forum encouraging everyone to blog, tweet, like, digg, and otherwise spread the Plone 4 goodness.  Also, thanks to Graham Perrin for pointing out the outstanding Plone 4.0 video. And in closing, a special tip o' the hat to Eric Steele and the 4.0 developers for making this release happen.