Just the initial data-set alone is going to be incredibly mis-representative of software in general. * Most-starred projects mean these are all successful proj

Just the initial data-set alone is going to be incredibly mis-representative of software in general. * Most-starred projects mean these are all successful projects. Much software is not successful. * A successful project means there are likely more-experienced-than-average engineers coding. * Most-starred projects will be older, more stable code-bases than most software. * Open Source development is a small slice of software development. * Github is a sub-set of Open Source development. And I expect there are a myriad of holes to poke elsewhere. In general I distrust any research that surveys GitHub and tries to make claims about software development in general. It is lazy.