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What's The Linux Kernel Worth?
schneelocke writes "What's the value of the Linux kernel? After an offer by one Jeff V. Merkey to pay 50K USD for a BSD-licensed copy of Linux, David Wheeler does some calculations and comes up with an estimate of 612M USD." Wheeler has come up with a number of interesting software-worth estimates and other quantified facts about Free software; since some aspects involve ineffables and hypotheticals, the details can be argued, but he provides a good framework with SLOCCount.
What is air worth? Some things have great value, but simply trying to measure that value in dollars is to misunderstand the nature of that value.
Just ask the WTO, they seem to be able to put a price on water. Why not air too?
Here's an email from Phil Kaplan stating his views of the offer to license Linux. I thought Slashdot would be a good place to post this. Jeff Phil Kaplan pk2@uranium.club.cc.cmu.edu Phil Kaplan wrote: > hey, retard, even if that pathetic, stupid offer' was a joke, it was a > bad joke, insulting, in poor taste, and indicative of a total cluelessness > on your part, or on the part of whoever holds your leash. some shitheads > back at the canopy group, maybe? there's already a license, called the > GPL. It allows you, and anyone else, to use Linux as much as you want, > copy it, give it to your friends, your customers, even your goldfish if > you like. It's not for sale. the whole point is that it's free. if you > don't get that, or if you're trying to create some kind of paper-thin > foundation for some kind of bullshit legal mumbo-jumbo that you our your > handlers might think will save SCO from total oblivion and the investors > back home from losing their asses (this whole lawsuit was just a pump&dump > scheme anyway), well, you're just an asshole, and you can with my > compliments go fuck yourself. > > > The only thing funny about this email and your comments has to do with physiology. I am amazed and astounded that your brain is able to generate enough electrical energy to make your fingers move to type this. I am not with Canopy, I am with Bryan Sparks, the person who founded the first Linux company. We want to buy out of the GPL. If you can't see this or figure it out then you are acting like a "retard". Jeff