It seems perfectly plausible that debian packages are mostly GPL while github is mostly MIT. (Eg Github first became popular in the ruby/rails community which tends to skew more MIT and corporate-friendly). I don't at all see the implication that the difference means someone's trying to lie with statistics.
Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to imply that anyone was lying.
The lies comes from people who uses the statistic to prove a change in society. The statistics is, as always, just data that is relevant in a specific context.
As to why github is mostly MIT, a reason I read is that github replaced private cvs, ftp and folders on ones laptop with a web service that has the dual functionality of work platform and collaboration platform. It follow the same path when people moved away from using office programs and started to use google docs.
I don't think Richard Fontana did the analysis, in his 2012 presentation entitled "The decline of the GPL and what to do about it" [1], he does refer to an analysis of Debian packages but that was done by John Sullivan (which was prompted by and counter to two analyses showing GPL's decline which were done by Matthew Aslett)
[1] "The decline of the GPL and what to do about it" https://events.linuxfoundation.org/images/stories/pdf/lfcs20...
Cool thanks, you're right it was John Sullivan... should have looked it up before trusting my memory...
I was thinking of his original talk:
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.