[ianloic]

Comparing the size of Ubuntu 'main' isn't interesting.

A more thoughtful assessment would have examined what packages were installed & used rather than which ones existed. That data is really easy to find: http://popcon.ubuntu.com/

[pedrocr]

I do have that data and have been using it in these kinds of analysis. There are two big problems with it. The first is that it's not given out in any kind of time-series or by distro-version so some analysis are very hard to do (this one would work though). The second is that the data gathering is opt-in so the sample will have a bias, probably towards power users.