Anomalous embedded Linux survey results reported, retorted

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Apr. 04, 2006

"Interest in embedded Linux remains low," proclaims an EE Times story based on a recent survey. Seventeen percent of respondents report using Linux, while two-thirds lack Linux interest or implementation plans, the publication says. The results contradict similar surveys, but a lack of available detail frustrates external analysis.

For example, embedded developers focused on 8-bit and 16-bit processor-based designs would naturally care little about a 32- and 64-bit OS such as Linux for their projects. Yet, Dylan McGrath, author of the EE Times study, does not clarify what percentage of respondents reported working with 32- or 64-bit processors, nor whether this question was asked, or whether the OS preference question was associated with processor bit-width. The survey questions have not been published anywhere that we could find, and McGrath did not respond by publication time to this and other questions.

The EE Times story is based on about 1,200 responses solicited via email from registrants for the Embedded Systems Conference, and to subscribers to three print titles, including the EE Times, Embedded Systems Design, and Embedded Systems Design Europe, McGrath writes. Yet despite the casual, email-based nature of the survey selection process, McGrath extrapolates the results of the survey onto the larger body of embedded developers, confidently asserting in the first sentence of his story that "only 17 percent of embedded systems designers are using Linux... according to the results of a survey..."

To our knowledge, it would take a respondent body qualified with greater care, and representing a larger percentage of the group being analyzed, to make such an extrapolation statistically rigorous. Not to mention tenuous connection between OSes used and processors bit-width.

And indeed, McGrath admits that the results from a similar EE Times survey last year yielded much different results, with 24 percent of respondents reportedly using embedded Linux.

Interestingly, embedded market analyst Venture Development Corp. in January, 2006 reported that its surveys of highly qualified embedded developers found that Linux remains the most popular embedded OS, with between 13 and 15 percent of embedded developers using it as a target OS.

Additionally, among developers working with 32-/64-bit processors, VDC reported in May, 2005 that Linux usage was much higher -- about 25 percent, as shown in the chart below (click image to enlarge).

OSes used by 32-/64-bit embedded developers
(Source: VDC, May 2005. Click to enlarge)
VDC Analyst Chris Lanfear expressed surprise at the EE Times survey results, commenting, "Every survey of embedded systems developers in the past two to three years, that I have seen, rates Linux as the most-used target OS."

Oddly, McGrath did not state whether Linux's "low" 17 percent made it the leading OS among respondents to the EE Times survey. We certainly would be interested to see more of the survey's findings, including percentages for the top five OSes, clarification on whether the question pertained to 32-/64-bit OSes or all processor types, etc.

Read McGrath's short, but provocative, article here.

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