So funny (and worrying) to see it at LINUXquestions. Microsoft bots? RPi is one of the most binary blob-infested single blob computers and features an awful Broadcom as its' CPU just because some RPi founders happened to be the former Broadcom employees. Broadcom is hostile to open source and we should not financially support this behaviour by still buying the boards with their chips. I am looking forward to EOMA68, it is going to run on 100% open source - both software and firmware - and is going to be FSF "Respects Your Freedom" certified My sincere congratulations to the GNU World Order!

Very interesting Poll, as always.
Thanks!!!!

Wait, what? I won the podcast category?? Gosh thanks, fellow voters!

What are some of your favorites in categories? It would help me to investigate these and implement some of them.

At any rate, thanks for your post.

-Boatner

Linux Mint rocks. VLC rocks. Firefox uh ..works pretty good.

It's original sole purpose was to create a cheap computer to introduce people to computer programming, this is what it has achieved.

Yes, it is closed hardware, but where else do you find a reasonably decent SOC at this price with backup from the maker.
Don't forget, a Raspberry Pi isn't just a SOC, it's a whole community.

Once again this year, the polls prove I don't follow the crowd. I wouldn't have picked a single one of these as top dog!
In fact, I only use (occasionally) two on the list, and they're not my top choices in the category, both Mozilla products.
And KDE & VLC? No thanks!

Great work! I think a catagory for 3D design (or animation?) might be good.

This will probably be taken as flame bait but what the heck...
This is intended as a straw man to show a concept. There is room to make this as simple or complex as desired.

Why not make the poll a year long event and free form the submissions using a formalized submission format?
LQ has a unique opportunity to really provide some extraordinary information using an informed population.
Let the community decide which categories, hardware, software etc are to be ranked by the number of repeat hits in list form from a seed target list.

The target list of choices provided back to the community would be based on the number of hits per category, then, within a category, the number of hits for a member's specific choice, then within a choice, some key characteristic... as fine grained as desired.

The results list would continually update with the most selected items bubbling up to the top of a category.

The member submitted list would include a unique id for each member so they could change, modify their submission at any time prior to the end of the year. This would allow a change in the submission if the updated target presented items not previously considered by than member.

LQ could control the results list to the degree they decide at the end of the year, for example, by posting the top 10 categories, hardware choices, software choices...
Parsing the results and updating the complete target list provided to the community could be a simple sort script. It could even be done in LibreCalc as a flat table or LibreBase if a more resilient relational treatment was worth the effort.

For example, using a simple listing of choices using a category:subcategory:item submissions from three members could look like:

MemberID01: Software: Dist: Desktop: Linux Mint
MemberID01: Software: Env: Desktop: KDE
MemberID01: Software: Dist: Server: Slackware
MemberID01: Software: Dist: Server: Centos
MemberID01: Software: Dist: Live: Kali

MemberID02: Software: Env: Desktop: Xfce
MemberID02: Software: Dist: Server: Ubuntu
MemberID02: Software: Dist: Server: Slackware
MemberID02: Software: Env: Desktop: KDE
MemberID02: Software: Dist: Live: antiX

MemberID03: Software: Env: Desktop: KDE
MemberID03: Software: Dist: Server: Centos
MemberID03: Software: Dist: Server: Slackware
MemberID03: Software: Dist: Live: antiX

Each member can adjust their list for submission throughout the year as long as a formalized
category:subcategory:subcategory:...:choice format is kept. Processing the list will filter out a member's duplicates, favoring the highest choice position in their last submitted list.
The target list would be updated with any new entries and provided back to the community.
If someone saw an entry that looked better, or changed their priorities, their list could be resubmitted prior to the end of the year.

Here is an example of the poll in action:
The updated target list provided back to the community would be:
Software: Dist: Desktop:
Software: Env: Desktop:
Software: Dist: Live:
Software: Dist: Server:

Results to date (entries reflected 2018 results for example purposes only):
Software: Dist: Desktop: Linux Mint
Software: Env: Desktop: KDE
Software: Dist: Live: antiX
Software: Dist: Server: Slackware

This design will provide results by frequency of selection and should address the 'my choice wasn't in the list' concern. It will also show indecision by the community if no frequency is shown for a given choice in the target list.

A couple of those winners I'd never heard of, sadly. How about including links to them? Yes I know I can go google, but at least this way it would be the main site not some half-baked download site.

Interesting results. I am happy people voted for good old Slackware and antiX, in different categories. GOOD distros, indeed!
And there is no good alternative, or at least popular, to remove $kype from our FLOSS computers!!??
One more: Firefox is the preferred browser for GNU/Linux people... but is throwing the towel on its engine and will adopt chromium's

woot

How did Skype end up winning? Doesn't Jitsi make more sense?

And Visual Studio as IDE? Why not Eclipse or Vim?

Because Eclipse is not good and Vim is not an IDE.