I love trend data. If you can get access to decent data going back a decade or more you can often notice a strong trend. In these cases there's no opinion involved to make an inference. A picture is truly worth a thousand words. There is plenty of trend data visible when it comes to open source adoption. The results presented below are interesting.

The data from Netcraft shows Apache has long been the dominant web server. This won't surprise anyone who has followed the industry.

Without bind and other open source nameservers, the Internet and many Intranet networks would cease to function. Sendmail, Qmail, and Postfix are the heavy lifters of the world's email. Many of Google's services are built on top of open source. Firefox is continuing to grow and usurp IE as the browser of choice for many people. And open source provides not one, but multiple strong offerings in the mobile embedded industry. (see our videos from the YYZ1 event)

What about cluster computing?

It turns out the data from Top500.org shows that Linux has steadily risen to become the runaway dominant operating system for super computers.

A related story about the fastest supercomputer in the world built by IBM (Running Linux)

Before you correct me on the title (for those that didn't get the joke), please view This link