Slashdot Mirror
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.
612million / [Developers.Count] = $650 (per machine)
;)
Who woulda thunk it.....
liqbase
we should get a better estimate by asking the nice folks at SCO. They seem to know much about this.
... put a price on it. Linux is priceless. Mac OSX is $50.00. Windows is a paperclip and a bubblegum wrapper.
I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
"They want me to be a whore!" -- Linus Torvalds.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
> The end result is that the Linux kernel has no market value what so ever. The developers won't sell it at the market's price, and the market won't buy it at the developers price.
Yeah, I'm waiting for SCOX to come down off its high horse before I buy it, too.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Sure it wasn't Stef Murkey?
See what I've been reading.
Clearly it's $699.
Why bother.
Good point. The problem is that business doesn't work that way. You need actual monetary values for all of your business property, requirements, etc. Are the managers supposed to say, "We have 1,000 machines running Linux. Our infrastructure is priceless!"?
What is air worth? Air is like Sex.
Air becomes highly important just a Sex becomes highly important proportionally to the time of not getting any.
Since there is only 1 person in the potential market at this point, and there has been only one offer, with no counter offer (unless you count "infinity dollars" as a valid asking price), there is not enough data to set a reasonable market price for the product.
Sure there is. Just average the figures $50K and infinity and you get the market price: infinity dollars.
Are you implying that "Linux" is an actual marketable brand?!!! /. trolls keep telling me that only basement-dwelling loser troglodites use Linux!
All the
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I bet Van Gogh would trade it for a some absinthe and a human ear.
Development costs by Microsoft 2,000,000,000
Buying out the compitition 1,000,000,000
In court related costs 500,000,000
Lost revenue from pirates 200,000,000
Having to compete against a free alternative PRICELESS
There are some kernals you just cant buy, for everything else theres Master Card(TM)
You know how much a hello world is worth?
;-p
#include <stdio.h>
int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
printf("Hello world!\n");
return 0;
}
Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 7
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 0.04 (0.48)
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 148
generated using David A. Wheeler's 'SLOCCount'
but i think he wouldn't want anyone to know in this case
Priceless is running it on your home computer, finding a bug, fixing it, and having Linus Torvalds tell you your patch is going in and millions of other people will see it in an hour.
Or better yet: finding a bug, reporting in on the kernel mailing list, and starting a gigantic flame war ;)
A sphincter says what?