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Estimating the Size/Cost of Linux
2bits writes "Wow... A Billion Dollars Worth Of Software On My System For Free! Check This Guy Out, He Came Up With A Counting / Pricing Method For Quite A Few Types of Source Code. Here is the Program. The results on the site are sorta dated, based on RH 7.1, but the app is pretty cool!... Hey, I can finally find out how much all my side projects are worth / costing me..."
Okay, so now Slashdot is posting this story that is over a year old?
From the header of the paper:
More Than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux's Size
David A. Wheeler (dwheeler@dwheeler.com)
June 30, 2001 (updated November 8, 2001)
Version 1.06
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Why? He obviously does not use Linux. Just look at his picture! What Linux user out there is gonna be caught dead wearing a white shirt and a tie? Okay, maybe to a wedding/funeral, but that's it.
He also went off and shaved and combed his hair for his picture.
The man just ain't right, I tell you!
This looks like a serious problem for Linux
distributors like Red Hat, Mandrake, and Debian.
They sell their products
usually.
Wrong. Debian doesn't sell anything.
Now we see that what they put into their product
(i.e., the cost) is orders of magnitude beyond
that.
Wrong again. Red Hat's costs are what they actually spend, not what the stuff they distribute would have cost if it had not been given to them.
even if nobody downloaded it for free...
There's your clue: _Red_ _Hat_ downloads the stuff they distribute for free.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Talking about accuracy: his program estimates 11.71 person-years to build one of the applications I have developed. Actually, I am working three years in my spare time on it ... maybe I have unknowingly figured out how to warp time ?