In late May and early June 2007, we ran three polls in the jmriusers group ( now hosted at https://groups.io/g/jmriusers ) to learn more about what our users are actually using. This page reports the results. Ten years later it would be good to update our view of the user base.
There's likely to be a selection bias in the responses. People who are actively involved with JMRI are more likely to subscribe to the jmriusers group, which was necessary to learn of the poll. They are possibly more likely to reply to the poll, and more likely to have a more recent version. We should take this into account when using the results.
In the sections below, we summarize and interpret the results. The complete raw data is available at the end of the page.
Note that 1.7.6 was the most recent test release, but it was quite old. The most recent production release, 1.6.1, was very old. This may have caused more people to use the most recent test release(s) than we would have normally found. The poll's selection bias may also have resulting in more people listing the most recent test release(s) than is true of the user population as a whole, thus understating the number of people who just download the more recent production version and run.
It's possible that 10% of JMRI users have downloaded test distributions of Java 1.7 from Sun, but since Java 1.7 is not generally released yet it seems more likely that some of those responses are confusions with the JMRI release number. This in turn implies that the Java 1.6 number might be a little inflated by the same mechanism.
There were four respondents (1.5%) who used Macintosh OS 8.6, 9.0 or 9.1. All of the Mac OS X respondents were using version 10.3 (4 votes) or later (20 votes).
Among only Linux varients, the responses were:
Among other operating systems, there were no respondents indicating they used OS/2, or either "Other Unix-based" or "Other non-Unix-based". One respondent was using Solaris.
Which operating system do you run JMRI on? We'd like to know this to improve our testing and development. You can pick as many choices as you want, but please only select ones that you are using now, or are actually running on a computer that you're likely to put JMRI on soon.
A total of 266 users answered the poll.
| Answer | Number | Fraction |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 95 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Windows 98 | 35 votes | 13.16% |
| Windows NT | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Windows 2000 | 29 votes | 10.90% |
| Windows Millennium Edition | 6 votes | 2.26% |
| Windows Server (any, including 2003) | 1 votes | 0.38% |
| Windows x64 (any 64-bit, including XP and Vista) | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Windows XP (including SP1, SP2, Home and Professional) | 138 votes | 51.88% |
| Windows Vista (any except x64) | 7 votes | 2.63% |
| Windows (Other, including CE) | 1 votes | 0.38% |
| Mac OS X - 10.1, 10.2 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Mac OS X - 10.3 | 4 votes | 1.50% |
| Mac OS X - 10.4 or later | 20 votes | 7.52% |
| Macintosh - 8.6, 9.0 or 9.1 | 4 votes | 1.50% |
| Linux - Ubuntu | 4 votes | 1.50% |
| Linux - Red Hat (including Centos) | 5 votes | 1.88% |
| Linux - Yellow Dog | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Linux - Debian | 4 votes | 1.50% |
| Linux - Gentoo | 1 votes | 0.38% |
| Linux - SUSE | 4 votes | 1.50% |
| Linux - Other | 2 votes | 0.75% |
| IBM OS/2 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Solaris - Intel or SPARC | 1 votes | 0.38% |
| Other Unix-based | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Other non-Unix-based | 0 votes | 0.00% |
Which version of Java do you use when running JMRI? If you're not sure, you can find out by starting DecoderPro and looking at the 2nd line on the startup window. It'll say something like "Java version 1.5.0_07 (en_US)"; we just want the first digits, e.g. 1.5. We want this information so we can understand what language features we can and can't use in JMRI. Please only enter what you're using now, not what you plan to use or have used in the past.
A total of 159 users answered the poll.
| Answer | Number | Fraction |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.2 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.3 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.4 | 32 votes | 20.13% |
| 1.5 | 56 votes | 35.22% |
| 1.6 | 54 votes | 33.96% |
| 1.7 | 17 votes | 10.69% |
Which version of JMRI are you _currently_ running? If you're not sure, start DecoderPro or PanelPro and look at the startup window. It will say "DecoderPro 1.something.something, part of the JMRI Project"; that's the number we're looking for. We want this information to help us understand how far back we should make e.g. decoder files compatible. Please don't enter versions you no longer use, or just plan to use in the future; we want to know what you're using now.
A total of 168 users answered the poll.
| Answer | Number | Fraction |
|---|---|---|
| I build my own copy from the code |
9 votes | 5.36% |
| 1.7.6 | 125 votes | 74.40% |
| 1.7.5 | 13 votes | 7.74% |
| 1.7.4 | 2 votes | 1.19% |
| 1.7.3 | 6 votes | 3.57% |
| 1.7.2 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.7.1 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.7.0 | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.6.1 | 10 votes | 5.95% |
| 1.6.0 | 1 votes | 0.60% |
| 1.5 (any) | 1 votes | 0.60% |
| 1.4 (any) | 1 votes | 0.60% |
| 1.3 (any) | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| 1.2 (any) | 0 votes | 0.00% |
| Before 1.2 | 0 votes | 0.00% |