Evans Data put out a press release this week with some interesting data on whom open source developers look to for the best open source offerings. In a survey of 400 open source developers, Red Hat was first, by a slim margin, over Novell, with IBM and Sun rounding out the top four. Given Red Hat’s first mover advantage, Novell’s ability to close the mindshare gap among developers in notable. Even more interesting, though, is the broader study conclusion about the fragmentation in the space. Even Red Hat only garnered 11.7% of the vote. Evans Data concludes that the field is wide open and that “Red Hat, Novell, IBM, and Sun, have devoted tremendous resources to the Open Source community and are poised for huge gains in this sector.”