The analysis of PyPI downloads by OS shown in https://twitter.com/di_codes/status/1359936102413594628 looks odd because the Platforms chart is basically 0 for everything else as Linux shows up as 100-300M downloads a day.
I suspect this is the age old “how many downloads are CI systems vs users” question.
Have had any success attempting to track this?
One idea that could be done within a future pip, at least on posixy things like Linux, would be to have pip indicate if a download was coming from an interactive session (presence of a controlling terminal via the pty module?) or an automated session (more likely to be a continuous integration system or automated build system) within the download request.
It’d be great to be able to highlight when automation users are not using a local PyPI cache and really should be… And figure out how to make that a normal thing in the common CI setups if those are indeed the cause (still just a hypothesis).