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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.
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.
This is not quite true. The market value is what the market would buy the product for, if it WAS for sale.
Imagine that you have a car, which you for whatever reason don't want to sell at the moment. This doesn't leave your car with "no market value". The market value is still what the market would have bought it for if it was for sale.
So the Mona Lisa is worth nothing, because the Louvre isn't willing to sell it?
You are asuming that there IS a market. The OP stated that there is currently no market for linux kernels, because there is only one potential buyer and one potential seller who cant agree on a price --> no trade, no market, no market price.
In your example there is a market for collector cars which can be used to find a market price.
But it would be better to say "priceless" than "nothing"
bickerdyke
It's like trying to put monetary value on a Van Gogh or a Matisse. The Linux kernel is truly priceless. You could never get that kind of collaboration even with the most highly paid software engineers, beacuse they don't do it for money, neither did Van Gogh.
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.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
The discussion based on the offer is what would it be worth in a binary-only form under a BSD-style license. The developers are willing to accept a price of $0 for the code under a GPL license, but are not willing to sell at any price under a less restrictive license. Hence, there is no asking price for the actual product demanded, as it is explicitly not for sale. 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.
Estimating based on what it would cost in a commercial environment is also flawed, because there are too many variables to consider. If it were developed in, say, Silicon Valley, each programmer's hourly rate would probably approach $100. If it were developed in, say, Boise, Idaho, the hourly rate for these programmers would probably be in the neighborhood of $20 to $30. There is also development models, management, total personnel required, etc. These things will all vary depending on the nature of the business, what kind of timelines they were looking at, who the management team was, etc.
The bottom line is, since the developers have always been paid nothing for their work (except those that are being sponsored by commercial entities), the total value of their time put into the project is $0. Sure, you could try and put it in terms of an opportunity cost to the developer, but that sort of thing leads to inflated valuations, since in all likelihood if these guys weren't writing the code in their spare time, they would be doing some other hobby that doesn't pay them anything instead.
The bottom line here is, the only time that you can assign a value to is the time that someone actually received a wage for. This is a small minority of the overall code base, so by that method the code would not be worth much at all.
Therefore, all we are left to consider is whether or not Linux is a good value to the consumer. Generally speaking, a good value to the consumer is one in which they extract more value out of the product then what they paid for it. Since most people get Linux for free, it doesn't take much to get more than what you paid out of it, especially if you use it in a business context. There are those, of course, who will get negative value out of it (they get frustrated and throw the computer out the window, for example), but the vast majority of users will get a net positive value out of the product. Putting a dollar amount on that value is difficult, though.
You've hit the nail on the head. The Linux kernel is Priceless.
A DSL connection to the internet: $50
A decent PC: $500
Downloading enterprize-class source code: Priceless.
There is some code you can't buy, for everything else, there's Microsoft.
Fellowship 9/11
The bottom line is, since the developers have always been paid nothing for their work
Why do we keep saying this when it is so patently untrue?
Were the SGI engineers payed nothing for their work on the Linux kernel? The DEC engineers who made 2.0 possible? The IBM engineers who ported massive amounts of IBM code into Linux (the topic of a lawsuit, I'll remind you) and wrote a good amount of their own code? What about the Red Hat engineers who have contributed hugely? Alan Cox isn't paid? I think he'd be upset to hear it. Last I checked Linus was being paid specifically for his work on Linux by OSDL.
These are just the high-profile cases. Dozens of people around the world are paid to work on specific niches of the Linux kernel all the time.
Same thing goes for the rest of the OS tools, utilities, and subsystems.
The fact that some, even a majority (and I'm not conviced on that point) of the work might be gratis does not mean "the developers have always been paid nothing."
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Well considering many of the developers would not work under a BSD license I say your argument is flawed. There is a BSD licensed UNIX that runs on x86. I think not as many developers work on it because what incentive does a large comany have to return it's modifications back into the free version as opposed to just saying FU, I have my fork.
Granted it does happen (as in the case of apple) but it is kindof enforced under the GPL and I think that gives the developers some solice that they wouldn't have under a BSD style license.
How would you feel if someone took your work, made a change or two and sold it as their own? I'd be pretty pissed.
So... if I fix a flat tire on my car myself, that labor has a value of zero dollars? Even 'tho I just saved myself twenty bucks? If I fix my neighbor's computer for free, saving her fifty bucks in the process, the value of my labor is zero? If I spend some time I could be laboring for a paycheck instead engrossed in a hobby, that time has zero value?
Dude... you got some fucked up values
Value:
1 # An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.
2 # Monetary or material worth: the fluctuating value of gold and silver.
3 # Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit: the value of an education.
4 # A principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable: "The speech was a summons back to the patrician values of restraint and responsibility" (Jonathan Alter).
Therefore, all we are left to consider is whether or not Linux is a good value to the consumer.
By your measure it's not - it's completely worthless unless that consumer paid for it.
What is the value to me of a diamond? Only what I could sell it for - I have no use for a diamond (unless, perhaps, I need to cut a piece of glass). Bottom line is you expended a lot of words saying nothing. Value and price are not directly related, nor even comparable to one another.
The 3-clause BSD licence is poisonous, because it allows someone effectively to turn an open-source product into a closed-source one, just by not distributing the source code.
Not "poisonous" at all. Keep your FUD out of this. While one can take BSD licensed source code and create a binary closed source product, this is not "poisonous". The orginal source code is still there. The orginal project is still there.
It would be like someone taking one apple from a free apple tree and locking it up. Are people going to be screaming "he poisoned the tree" when he locks up one apple? Of course not!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!