Package Freshness in Linux Distributions.

Survey conducted on the package freshness in Linux distributions. A preprint of the paper can be found here.

The survey form can be found here.

An anonymised version of the responses is included, in csv format:

- The first 3 columns correspond to the answers to the first question, that is to say the ranking of the distributions used by respondents.

- The "perception" columns correspond to the answers to the second question: "according to you, how long does it take for the latest upstream version to be made available in the official repositories of that distribution?"

Packages were divided into 6 categories:

OSS: open-source end-user software, such as Firefox, LibreOffice or GIMP;
PS: proprietary end-user software, such as Adobe Reader, Spotify or Skype;
DT: development tools, such as git, Emacs or Eclipse;
STL: system tools and libraries, such as openSSL;
PLL: programming language libraries, such as Numpy, Lodash or Boost;
PLR: programming language runtimes such as Python, node.js or Java.

- The "importance" columns correspond to the answers to the third question: "how important is it for you to stay up to date with upstream packages of the following types?"

- The "reasons" columns correspond to the answers to the fourth question: "what are your main reasons for updating packages?"

- The "mechanisms" columns correspond to the answers to the fifth question: "which mechanism do you use to install specific versions of packages?"

The possible mechanisms are:

Official package manager the distribution and its official repository (off),

Official package manager of the distribution with community repositories (com),

Third-party package managers (3rd)

Installing manually from binaries (bin)

Installing manually from source files (sources)