Linux Ecosystem Is Worth $25 Billion

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux Ecosystem Is Worth $25 Billion

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 20, 2008 @03:44AM from the my-piece-could-buy-you-a-cup-of-coffee dept.

darthcamaro writes "How much is Linux worth today? That's a question the Linux Foundation is trying to answer in a new report expected to be released on Wednesday.

176 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

How much is Linux worth? by zappepcs · 2008-10-20 03:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

In a different sense, the question is as simple as answering this one: How much is your business worth?

--
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
1. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2008-10-20 03:53 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  It's a little more complex than that because an individual business does have a quantifiable worth: in the case of a publicly traded company, it's their stock valuation; in the case of a privately held company, it's how much they'd get if they went public. (Note that I'm not saying this is an accurate measure, but it is at least something you can put a number on.) You could, if you wanted to and you had enough money, buy any corporation for a precisely tabulated amount. With Linux, there's nothing to buy out -- you could buy all the companies that make money distributing it (Red Hat etc.) and you still wouldn't own it.
  From the market-value-is-everything POV, this means Linux has infinite value, which clearly isn't true. But it does make it a lot harder to count up than, say, the value of Windows or Mac OS.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
2. Re:How much is Linux worth? by BPPG · 2008-10-20 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  more like, how much is the sum of all linux-centric business, plus half of businesses that indirectly benefit from linux, twice times whatever charities or non-profit orgs use linux, etc;
  then take the square root of that, then the natural logarithm of both sides, and then differentiate. The resulting value is some totally unrelated number. Or is it?
  
  --
  What's the value of information that you don't know?
3. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Aphoxema · 2008-10-20 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  I think it wasn't supposed to be like "How much money" so much as "How much is your daughter worth to you?" when being threatened into doing stuff, except backwards because it's Microsoft that's the guy with the gun and the need of a hatchetman.
  
  --
  "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
4. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 04:06 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  How much is your business worth?
  -$104, 287 in the red ever since the BSA raided my small business. Turns out that a former employee(my dim but well-meaning wife) installed the same copy of Windows Vista Business on 5 computers while I had only 4 licenses.
  
  They came in with assault rifles and stomped my face into the ground with their jackboots and kevlar saying I was a "filthy pirate" and that I was "goin' on a free vacation to Gitmo" and stole all 6 computers including my Mac and my Linux box and told me that they were being used for software piracy. When I asked teh judge about my rights, he said "9/11 threat level yellow terrorist pirate national security" and now I write slashdot from a common terminal within a very sympathetic maximum security prison.
5. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2008-10-20 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, good point. I hadn't thought of that interpretation.
  Okay, in that sense no one can really quantify the worth of anything, because everything has some emotional value. (Kids are right at the top of the list, obviously, but for many people businesses are pretty high up there too.) But we do quantify the value of things all the time, every time we buy or sell, so I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with trying to do so in this case. It's just much tougher than it would be with a proprietary OS.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
6. Re:How much is Linux worth? by theaveng · 2008-10-20 04:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The answer to this question is the same answer to "How much money is lost when people download music?"
  "Whatever they are willing to pay."
  If, like me, they are not willing to pay anything for either Britney Spears' latest CD, or the latest Linux distro, then the value is nothing. $0.00. But the record companies always assume everyone who downloads Britney is a "lost sale", and they publish huge outlandish figures for how much value they think they've lost. I suspect the Linux estimators will make the same crucial error in their estimates. Of those who download "free" music, or Linux, probably only 10% would be willing to pay for it.
  That tendency to avoid spending money needs to be accounted for, otherwise the value estimates are meaningless.
  
  --
  FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
7. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 04:17 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Exactly.
  If linux were suddenly to 'go away', how much would it cost to license, install, configure, and support the entire business world with millions of copies of Server 2008?
  Answer - a heckuva lot more than 25B.
  Back to the abacus to make up some new numbers...
8. Re:How much is Linux worth? by erroneus · 2008-10-20 04:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Everyone who downloads Britney is a "lost cause" but this is off-topic isn't it...
9. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  *holds up a gun* No, seriously, how much is your business worth to you? I'm short on cash so I'm doing some work for Microsoft on the side.
10. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Aphoxema · 2008-10-20 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  And somehow I posted anonymously when I didn't check the box thingie.
  
  --
  "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
11. Re:How much is Linux worth? by gstoddart · 2008-10-20 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  It's a little more complex than that because an individual business does have a quantifiable worth: in the case of a publicly traded company, it's their stock valuation; in the case of a privately held company, it's how much they'd get if they went public.
  I don't think that's quite right.
  There are many cases of private companies being sold in a private transaction, and the value on the stock market isn't a factor. Using plain old balance sheets and some measure of good will you can certainly quantify the value of a private business.
  It's entirely possible to arrive at a valuation of a company without using the stock market. In fact, it might be a more sound and objective measure than the stock market -- it often has little with do with fundamentals as it does the emotional state of investors wrt a given stock.
  Cheers
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
12. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 06:13 · Score: 0
  
  How much beer do you have?
13. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Tubal-Cain · 2008-10-20 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  -$104, 287 in the red
  Since "in the red" is supposed to denote a negative, -(-$104,287) is not bad.
14. Re:How much is Linux worth? by BronsCon · 2008-10-20 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  And if you DIDN'T post that... you just created karma sniping.
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
15. Re:How much is Linux worth? by MBGMorden · 2008-10-20 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  There are many cases of private companies being sold in a private transaction, and the value on the stock market isn't a factor.
  This seems counterintuitive. If it's a PRIVATE company that can be sold in a private transaction, then there is no "value on the stock market" because it's not publically traded.
  On the other hand, if there IS value on the stock market then it IS publically traded and can't be sold "in a private transaction".
  
  --
  "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
16. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Or better yet, what is the cheapest cost that could be achieved by implementing an alternate technology that would allow you to operate with near the same efficiency.
  To put all these semantic arguments to rest about FOSS means you can't associate a $ amount to it: an approximate value can be associated when you evaluate the cost of competing technologies.
17. Re:How much is Linux worth? by gstoddart · 2008-10-20 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  This seems counterintuitive. If it's a PRIVATE company that can be sold in a private transaction, then there is no "value on the stock market" because it's not publically traded.
  You misunderstand me. The OP said:
  
  It's a little more complex than that because an individual business does have a quantifiable worth: in the case of a publicly traded company, it's their stock valuation; in the case of a privately held company, it's how much they'd get if they went public.
  My response is that the stock market does not actually define the valuation of a private company which is sold in a private sale, because it's not valued on the stock market. Further, that value isn't defined in terms of how much you'd get if you went public.
  I'm asserting that the statement that an "individual business does not have quantifiable worth" without reference to the stock market is bogus. People can, and do, assign values to companies which are not traded on stock exchanges. It happens all the time.
  I'm saying you can arrive at a quantifiable value for a company without having the stock market involved. I'm not talking about a private sale of a company which is publicly traded. I'm saying that the stock market is not the only measure of value of a corporate entity. And, private equity sales of businesses happens every day.
  Cheers
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
18. Re:How much is Linux worth? by clam666 · 2008-10-20 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  Linux is worth what you pay for it.
  Determining worth is like determining how much a screw driver is worth. It isn't the screw driver; the person who knows when to use it, how to use it, and more importantly, whether or not and WHY you should use it is the important part.
  The person who knows how to use linux (or Windows for that matter) is the important part. Do they know the aspects of low level configuration, security, software engineering and optimization? Or are they still pulling the values of text boxes from the internet and concantenating them to the end of a SQL statement?
  I think a better measure would be:
  What is the average cost to hire/contract linux administrators and developers at an organization? How does this relate to a similar Windows situation in terms of TCO and ROI? Is it a better cost per hour? Bang for the buck?
  
  --
  I'm a satanic clam.
19. Re:How much is Linux worth? by entgod · 2008-10-20 08:34 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Even though people wouldn't pay for something it doesn't mean it doesn't have any value. I certainly wouldn't pay for my linux distro but it is of tremendous value to me, I use it for many things with it most people would pay money (in form of buying windows) to do. The fact that it's hard to attach an accurate monetary value to something doesn't mean it doesn't have any.
20. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Draek · 2008-10-20 09:18 · Score: 1
  
  Except that by your use of Linux you're increasing it's value by the network effect. Granted, the same is also true for Britney, but for OSes the effect is much stronger than for mere music, so even if you never intended to pay for it, Linux is better off with you than without.
  
  --
  No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
21. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Just+Some+Guy · 2008-10-20 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  That'd outgross SCO, I think.
  
  --
  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
22. Re:How much is Linux worth? by top_down · 2008-10-20 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  "How much money is lost when people download music?"
  Wrong example. Copying music, whether done by a record company or its illegal competitor the music pirate, is always producing value. No money is lost. Money is lost when you are not downloading while you want to.
  "Whatever they are willing to pay."
  This is wrong too. What we are willing to pay depends on what else is on the market and the price of these alternatives are related.
  Without Linux there is a good chance that Unix would have died and Windows would have even less competition. How do you account for that?
  On top of that it is far too limited. Open products like Linux have huge synergies that can make small scale & high cost industries into low cost mass producing industries. The best example here is the internet itself.
  The lesson must be that trying to quantify this kind of thing is an excercise in futility.
  
  --
  Anyone who generalizes about slashdotters is a typical slashdotter.
23. Re:How much is Linux worth? by darkvizier · 2008-10-20 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  "How much money is lost when people download music?"
  
  Wrong example. Copying music, whether done by a record company or its illegal competitor the music pirate, is always producing value. No money is lost. Money is lost when you are not downloading while you want to.
  I think the music example was right on the mark. I was going to make that same comparison before I found theaveng's post. I'm not sure where you're going with the rest of this... The only difference between copying music and copying a linux distro is that you're violating copyright law in one instance. In both cases the user gets some satisfaction or utility as a result, and both cases are impossible to qualify in financial terms, as you note further on.
  Open source also provides value by acting as an anchor point for pricing of commercial software and raising the bar for required features. This forces companies to innovate and advance technology in order to remain profitable. Free open source is by definition outside of any economic model, so you can't put a price on it... but it does have value.
  The same reasoning can also be extended to media piracy... It exists, it will continue to exist, and in order for companies to be profitable they have to provide some value above and beyond what is freely available. Security in an untrusted environment will always fail, and extortion is not a sustainable business model. This too shall pass... Wait and see!
24. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Kjella · 2008-10-20 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  and now I write slashdot from a common terminal within a very sympathetic maximum security prison.
  What you've done for that I definately don't want to know.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
25. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Weedlekin · 2008-10-20 19:00 · Score: 1
  
  "If linux were suddenly to 'go away', how much would it cost to license, install, configure, and support the entire business world with millions of copies of Server 2008?
  Answer - a heckuva lot more than 25B."
  You're falling into the trap of assuming that the only possible replacement for Linux is Windows, when a much more likely replacement would be one of the BSDs, which Linux admins can use with minimal retraining, will run most Linux software with in the worst cases a recompile, and are both free as in beer and open source.
  So the actual cost of Linux going away would actually be the time spent downloading a BSD distro, installing it, learning the differences between it and Linux (which are no greater from an administrator's POV than moving from one Linux distro to another), and recompiling the few important applications that don't directly run on it and haven't already got a BSD-specific version.
  
  --
  I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
26. Re:How much is Linux worth? by Weedlekin · 2008-10-20 19:03 · Score: 1
  
  "Or better yet, what is the cheapest cost that could be achieved by implementing an alternate technology that would allow you to operate with near the same efficiency."
  The cheapest would be one of the free-as-in-beer BSDs.
  "To put all these semantic arguments to rest about FOSS means you can't associate a $ amount to it: an approximate value can be associated when you evaluate the cost of competing technologies."
  The value of FOSS and the value of Linux are not the same thing, because Linux is a part of FOSS, not the entirety of it.
  
  --
  I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
27. Re:How much is Linux worth? by isorox · 2008-10-20 20:07 · Score: 1
  
  now I write slashdot from a common terminal within a very sympathetic maximum security prison.
  Hans Reiser, is that you?
What? by Yvan256 · 2008-10-20 03:48 · Score: 4, Funny

How much is Linux worth today? That's a question the Linux Foundation is trying to answer in a new report expected to be released on Wednesday.
There's no need for that, we already have the answer (see title).
1. Re:What? by Xaemyl · 2008-10-20 04:09 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, but Linux Is Not Unix!
2. Re:What? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2008-10-20 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  10 PRINT "25 BILLION" 20 GOTO 10
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
3. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 10:35 · Score: 0
  
  So, do you run that with the new GnuBASIC interpreter?
4. Re:What? by Easy2RememberNick · 2008-10-20 14:21 · Score: 1
  
  I think you (and the link) mean GNU/Linux.
In related news... by Jeff+Hornby · 2008-10-20 03:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

in a study done by me, my 11 year old jeep is also worth $25 billion.
I wonder how much the Linux ecosystem would be worth if it were valued by an organization that didn't have a vested interest.

--
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
1. Re:In related news... by einer · 2008-10-20 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. I'm sure this bomber I'm about to fire up has a "street value" of well over $1.3 million, but I managed to acquire it for the low low price of $12.50...
  Also (further off topic), over the course of my life, I've found that the price of pot is a far better instrument to measure inflation than any number published by a government agency.
2. Re:In related news... by phorest · 2008-10-20 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  I've found that the price of pot is a far better instrument to measure inflation than any number published by a government agency.
  I'd like to see those numbers...
  
  --
  God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
3. Re:In related news... by fm6 · 2008-10-20 04:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Usually, I share your cynicism about these breathless, fact-free "open source is gaining ground!" stories. But here your logic is way off. If this were just some pundit working for the Linux foundation making the usual "expert" assertions, your criticism would be valid. But this is a report based on real-world figures, and these figures deserve to be evaluated on their own merit. The fact that the people who wrote the report have a bias should make you look out for selective use of data, but doesn't automatically destroy the report's credibility.
4. Re:In related news... by Windows_NT · 2008-10-20 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  15 bucks, little man, put that shit in my hand.
  If that money doesnt show than you owe me owe me owe.
  So 15 a dime from jay. 20 from me if i dont like you :)
  
  --
  Go go Gadget Nailgun!
5. Re:In related news... by DoofusOfDeath · 2008-10-20 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  in a study done by me, my 11 year old jeep is also worth $25 billion.
  Lisa, I would like to by that Jeep.
6. Re:In related news... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 04:54 · Score: 0
  
  He was an innocent buy-stander
7. Re:In related news... by morgan_greywolf · 2008-10-20 05:28 · Score: 1
  
  You mean like this?
  Jeff Hornby: Hello, Mr. Bin Laden. I have an 11-year-old Jeep parked outside. Buried somewhere in that Jeep is enough weapons-grade plutonium to make 4 nuclear warheads. How much will you give me for my 11-year-old Jeep?
  Osama Bin Laden: 25 billion dollars! Assuming what you say proves to be true, that is.
  Jeff: Okay! My 11-year-old jeep is worth $25 billion! Study complete!
  
  --
  My blog
8. Re:In related news... by gstoddart · 2008-10-20 05:28 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I wonder how much the Linux ecosystem would be worth if it were valued by an organization that didn't have a vested interest.
  Depends on if they have a vested interest in the other way.
  Microsoft would argue that Linux clearly has a negative value due to all of those patents which it may or may not be infringing on and the licensing fees you owe them.
  IBM will argue it has a high value since they make gobs of money on services as a result of it.
  At some point, you have to try to value it in terms of industry revenues associated with it, as well as the intangible value of how long it would take to build your own, or to buy a commercial solution to replace it.
  If every company using Linux were forced to replace it with a Microsoft solution, I can easily see the valuation to industry being measured in the billions.
  In terms of the resources being managed under Linux machines, how they're used, and what it would take to swap them out ... there's an awful lot of stuff you'd have to be spending a lot of money on to replace.
  Cheers
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
9. Re:In related news... by sgtrock · 2008-10-20 06:25 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Here's a report released on November 2006. Quoting from the executive summary:
  
  Direct economic impact of FLOSS
  The existing base of quality FLOSS applications with reasonable quality control and distribution would cost firms almost Euro 12 billion to reproduce internally. This code base has been doubling every 18-24 months over the past eight years, and this growth is projected to continue for several more years.
  This existing base of FLOSS software represents a lower bound of about 131 000 real person-years of effort that has been devoted exclusively by programmers. As this is mostly by individuals not directly paid for development, it represents a significant gap in national accounts of productivity. Annualised and adjusted for growth this represents at least Euro 800 million in voluntary contribution from programmers alone each year, of which nearly half are based in Europe.
  Firms have invested an estimated Euro 1.2 billion in developing FLOSS software that is made freely available. Such firms represent in total at least 565 000 jobs and Euro 263 billion in annual revenue. Contributing firms are from several non-IT (but often ICT intensive) sectors, and tend to have much higher revenues than non-contributing firms.
  Defined broadly, FLOSS-related services could reach a 32% share of all IT services by 2010, and the FLOSS-related share of the economy could reach 4% of European GDP by 2010. FLOSS directly supports the 29% share of software that is developed in-house in the EU (43% in the U.S.), and provides the natural model for software development for the secondary software sector.
10. Re:In related news... by fm6 · 2008-10-20 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  So why is that a bad study? Because the person doing the study cherry-picked the data. The fact that he had a bias towards over-pricing the jeep gives him motive for fiddling the results, but it doesn't prove he fiddled the results. Only a careful examination of the data can do that.
11. Re:In related news... by CBravo · 2008-10-20 08:29 · Score: 1
  
  He does have a point: they have a vested interest.
  
  --
  nosig today
12. Re:In related news... by fm6 · 2008-10-20 09:37 · Score: 1
  
  You're oversimplifying. His point is not just that they have a vested interest (duh!). It's that because they have a vested interest, we can ignore everything they have to say. My point is his point is wrong. It's rejecting an argument without listening to it, because you question the objectivity of the arguer. But the arguer's objectivity is irrelevant: an argument should stand or fall on its own merits.
13. Re:In related news... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 11:59 · Score: 0
  
  You really should have a look at the numbers, they are NOT using real numbers. They are doing the usual pulling them out of their arse trick and claiming they are real. eg they valued android as 1.3 billion of linux R&D. while I hate to say it this report looks like just more FUD
14. Re:In related news... by CBravo · 2008-10-20 18:03 · Score: 1
  
  Even if they have valid research, they must have some assumptions to arrive at that conclusion. Since they have a vested interest, those assumptions will always be the subject of conflict. That makes your point irrelevant (it doesn't make the research irrelevant though: big difference).
  Therefore his question is valid: how do others value the 'Linux ecosystem'.
  That is how I read it.
  
  --
  nosig today
15. Re:In related news... by fm6 · 2008-10-21 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  Everybody has assumptions. Research is about data, not about hypothetical biases.
That is a bubble price by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 03:51 · Score: 0

In real prices the Linux ecosystem is worth 25 double expressos.
Hijack it... by vuo · 2008-10-20 03:51 · Score: 1

The U.S. government could steal Linux, and it could pay 3.6% of the bailout package. Seriously, $25 billion is still small in terms of the real economy. For example, Microsoft's operating income is $22.5 billion.
1. Re:Hijack it... by powerslave12r · 2008-10-20 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  The U.S. government could steal Linux, and it could pay 3.6% of the bailout package. Seriously, $25 billion is still small in terms of the real economy. For example, Microsoft's operating income is $22.5 billion.
  Come to think of it, Bill Gates can buy linux out of his personal fortune and sell it as the successor to Windows 7.
  
  --
  Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 03:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

The only tidbit of info I have so far is that the LInux Foundation has valued Google's use of Linux for Android at $1.3 billion worth of R&D.
Value can only be attributed towards things that can be bought and sold.
This is therefore an example of Post hoc ergo propter hoc; ie., just because Linux foundation says the Linux footprint is worth $25 Billion, is a fallicy because nobody can purchase it. It could show a measure of the rate of Linux adoption, but such suggestions must be understood by looking at the bigger picture. Who's losing when Linux is being adopted and also, which projects are not going with Linux?
There is also the long-tail of Linux adoption that couldn't possibly be accounted in their figure.
I must maintain that the big picture is currently too big for anyone to fully interpret at present, especially the Linux foundation who is subject to some considerable bias.
You can't sell the Linux ecosystem, and if you believe you can buy it -- I have a bridge to sell you (please contact me right away because I also have some important Nigerian business that requires you immmmmediate and humbling attention, kind sirs.)
I like Linux, but these types of concepts are rooted in Non Sequitur; that the buy-in of Linux is rooted in the success of Linux. That can only be true of this is a zero-sum claim, and there is evidence of losses directly attributed which while plausible does not make these factually relevant.

--
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
1. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2008-10-20 04:03 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  This is therefore an example of Post hoc ergo propter hoc
  This is an example of someone not understanding what a particular logical fallacy actually is, and throwing it against the wall hoping it will stick.
  Seriously. These online lists of classic fallacies are useful resources, and I think they've done a lot of good by helping people learn to recognize arguments that fail in certain predictable ways, but I'm getting really tired of people just grabbing their favorite and applying it to whatever argument is at hand without pausing to make sure that it actually applies in any meaningful way.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
2. Re:I Love Linux, but... by TheRaven64 · 2008-10-20 04:07 · Score: 2, Insightful
  Actually, that's a pretty good measure of value. Google had three choices:
  
  Buy an OS from someone.
  
  Develop their own OS.
  
  Use an open source OS.
  
  The value of the open source OS, to them, is the cost of option 1 or 2, minus the cost of developing the extra stuff they need on top of it.
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
3. Re:I Love Linux, but... by pclminion · 2008-10-20 04:17 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If the entire Linux technology sphere magically vanished overnight (don't ask me how), would the damage to the economy be in excess of $25 billion? Just because there's no liquidity doesn't mean there's no value.
4. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Vellmont · 2008-10-20 04:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Value can only be attributed towards things that can be bought and sold.
  
  Pure nonsense. Value can be attributed to things that produce value. Would you say the Brooklyn Bridge is worth nothing because it can't be bought or sold? I'd hope not.
  Linux, like the Brooklyn Bridge produces economic value. Economists assign value to things that aren't bought and sold all the time. You can argue about how to go about this (and I'm certainly not qualified to do even that), but it's silly to say you can't give it a dollar value simply because nobody can "own" it.
  
  --
  AccountKiller
5. Re:I Love Linux, but... by bazorg · 2008-10-20 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  "Value can only be attributed towards things that can be bought and sold."
  your country's GDP for example.
6. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Alarindris · 2008-10-20 04:28 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Mod parent up.
  
  A occurred, then B occurred.
  Therefore, A caused B.
  
  I really don't see how that applies here.
  
  I think the converse fallacy of accident is more applicable.
  
  Every (business/good/OS) I've seen is worth something, so it must be true that Linux is worth something.
  
  But, as was stated, Linux is not for sale.
7. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  Pure nonsense. Value can be attributed to things that produce value. Would you say the Brooklyn Bridge is worth nothing because it can't be bought or sold? I'd hope not.
  If the Brooklyn Bridge is free, what value does it really have?
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
8. Re:I Love Linux, but... by jonaskoelker · 2008-10-20 04:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Value can be attributed to things that produce value.
  l = []; l.append(l); print l. Your definition is circular.
  Value is a measure of how much we want or like something. I value personal liberties. I value economic liberties. I value food, clean air, sex, internet, staple guns, learning new things, intellect and reason in myself and others, science and lots of other things.
  Value influences how much we're willing to give up to get the thing we value. If I had to choose between a house to live in and air to breath, I'd choose the air. If I had to choose between sex and internet, I'd choose sex. If I had to choose between 100$ and a copy of GH3+controller, I'd choose Guitar Hero. If I had to choose between 200$ and two Guitar Hero packs, I might choose the money, or I might choose the GH packs in hope of a resale.
  Money has value for society because it allows us to break symmetry: I don't have to write code for the baker to get his bread. It has value to the individual (or the organization) because we all agree to trade it for other things we value.
  Asking for the value of Linux is a vague question. The value of Linux what? The Copyrights? Not sure; even if everybody handed copyright on all FOSS code to a buyer, it's still FOSS, so we could just fork it and continue doing what we do. The buyer could allow itself to link GPL-incompatible code to _its_ GPL-licensed code. Or go all-the-way proprietary. How large a competitive advantage is that going to give? Not much, I think.
  Linux use? To me, being able to use Linux is more valuable than being able to use Windows. I'm a member of our minority group on that. To some people, there's a big dollar amount [of saved money] attached to using Linux instead of $OS. Measure all those amounts well and add them up, and you may end up with a number that actually means something and has a relationship to reality.
  An interesting bit from TFA:
  
  In 2008, IDC forecast that the Linux ecosystem would be worth $49 billion by 2011. That report coincidentally was sponsored by the Linux Foundation as well.
  Is that like a Gartner report saying Vista is worth $BIGNUM monies? Because from here I can't tell the difference, so someone please spell it out for me.
  (#define Linux GNU/Linux or Linux, as appropriate)
  -- Jonas K
9. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Culture20 · 2008-10-20 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  If the Brooklyn Bridge were destroyed, what effect would it have on the local economy? There is your hidden value. The bridge produces value despite there being no price tag.
  
  Okay, now I assume you're saying "But the bridge is unique, and it _could_ be sold/leased by the city to a toll-company"... Well, what about wind? If magically, all wind stopped, what does that do to everything? The wind produces value despite no price tag. Therefore, we value the wind.
10. Re:I Love Linux, but... by John+Hasler · 2008-10-20 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  > Would you say the Brooklyn Bridge is worth nothing because it can't be bought or sold?
  The Port Authority could sell it if they so chose. Linux, on the other hand, cannot be sold in the same sense that you cannot sell the idea of a cloud.
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
11. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  Both people arguing that the bridge is "free" are idiots. There is no "hidden value." The cost of the bridge was, simply put, the labor of the workers who built it and the cost of their raw materials. That's the price tag. The value it produces is it's return to local economy in the amount of gas the average commuter saves as a result of the bridge being in place.
12. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Value can only be attributed towards things that can be bought and sold.
  Nonsense. Since Linux is a free alternative to a much spendier product (Windows), it's "value" is the money saved when you choose it over something that would have cost you. In other words, Linux has tangible value because it has less opportunity cost than Windows, even though you can't buy it and you can't sell it.
  Also, I don't think you used post hoc ergo propter hoc correctly. That means "after this, therefore because of this," or in other words, it is the error in discriminating between correlation and causation. "A occurred, then B occurred. Therefore, A caused B." I didn't see that pattern of logic referenced anywhere in your paragraph.
  Maybe if we all just stopped using nonsensical jargon, like pedantic little latin phrases that make us sound "well-educated," and just said what we meant, we wouldn't have to waste our time typing and interpreting all that long-winded bullshit.
13. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  Get a clue dude. The Brooklyn Bridge was "bought" for the wages of the workers who built it and the cost of their raw materials. It produces tangible return to the community by increasing their available paths of commute, reducing their transportation costs in fuel and time. In fact, it could even be "sold" to a private holder, who would value it for the return that could be produced by charging a toll on the bridge.
  You're right that value can be attributed to things that produce value. What you have failed to realize is that someone realized this long, long before you did, and now when accountants, appraisers, economists, and the like estimate the value of something, such as real estate, one of the factors they always consider is the value that the property (or whatever else) is capable of producing. That means that the "future value" of many things is already incorporated into the price.
  In my opinion, Linux has value (even though you can't sell it) because it's a free alternative to a more costly option (Windows). In other words, Linux has less opportunity cost because if you choose it, you can do something else with all of your software licensing fees. Like hire competent and experienced Linux technicians, for example ...
14. Re:I Love Linux, but... by gstoddart · 2008-10-20 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  Both people arguing that the bridge is "free" are idiots. There is no "hidden value." The cost of the bridge was, simply put, the labor of the workers who built it and the cost of their raw materials. That's the price tag.
  That was the price tag then. You also have to look at how much it would cost you to replace it now. The fact that they likely spend millions/year in maintaining it means that it inherently has more value than just its "book value", which is almost meaningless for a bridge.
  It would cost a lot more money in todays dollars to replace that than it did to build it in the first place. And not having it would be hugely disruptive to traffic, economy, and psyche of New Yorkers.
  Valuation is far more complex than the initial cost to purchase. I think this thread is massively overly simplifying things here, and I doubt most of us are economists or qualified to really speak about such things.
  Cheers
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
15. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with you 100%. If you were doing a pro forma for the bridge, you'd have to consider the annual maintenance fees as one of the bridge's expenses, as well as considering the toll fees (or the money saved by the local economy, depending on your objectives) as the annual income. If the annual income is more than the annual expenses, then the present value of the bridge is equivalent to the net income in each subsequent year, each discounted by your annual MARR (and possibly including profits on the disposition).
  However even my pedantically simple "initial cost" analysis was more complex than theirs. They were just flat-out wrong, man! That ain't a free bridge!
  If that bridge is free then I'll sign on the dotted line for it right now and immediately impose a $1/car toll.
16. Re:I Love Linux, but... by gstoddart · 2008-10-20 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  However even my pedantically simple "initial cost" analysis was more complex than theirs. They were just flat-out wrong, man! That ain't a free bridge!
  If that bridge is free then I'll sign on the dotted line for it right now and immediately impose a $1/car toll.
  Agreed, and, for many of the same reasons, it's meaningless to argue that Linux can't have a value associated with it and things that run on it.
  It has value. Albeit, one which is hard to come up with a specific dollar figure for.
  Cheers
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
17. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Miseph · 2008-10-20 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  cost!=value.
  You are correct to say that the cost of the Brooklyn Bridge was the labor and materials put into building it (all which I'm sure have a known dollar amount, in case anyone cares), but that is not the same as its value or worth. One would have to account for how much it would cost to rebuild the bridge now, how much revenue it actually generates per year (ie. in terms of fuel savings and increase in access, how much business is created by the Brooklyn Bridge multiplied by how valuable that business is), how long it would take to rebuild the bridge, and the bridge's sentimental value as an historic landmark.
  You're also right that there is no "hidden value"... it's pretty much out in the open.
  
  --
  Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
18. Re:I Love Linux, but... by suggsjc · 2008-10-20 06:12 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You make some good points, but I think you lost about half of your readers after this line:
  
  If I had to choose between sex and internet, I'd choose sex.
  
  --
  When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
19. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 06:31 · Score: 0
  
  If paper clips vanished overnight the damage done might be more than $25 billion (not including the actual worth of the paper clips).
20. Re:I Love Linux, but... by kill-1 · 2008-10-20 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  Linux and any other collaborative open source project could be sold theoretically, if all copyright holders would agree on the terms.
21. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  If I were doing the books for a company's tech department, I'd figure that the value of Linux was something like the cost of licensing Windows, minus the cost of hiring a team of Linux admins to maintain the software. I imagine that you would end up with figures showing that you saved the company $X million dollars, especially if Linux can keep a comparable uptime and you can show that there'd be a minimum of retraining costs associated with using something like OpenOffice instead of MS Office.
  And then, if the Linux solution crashes and burns, you have a whole team of sysadmins to blame it on! It's win/win, I tell ya.
22. Re:I Love Linux, but... by bogeyjlg · 2008-10-20 06:57 · Score: 0
  
  Only half?
23. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Ihmhi · 2008-10-20 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  True, but how many people would be using Linux if it weren't free?
  It's powerful for a lot of functions - servers and the like. But let's say Linux costed even half as much as Windows XP. Would we see it in sub-notebooks like the EEE? OLPC?
  
  --
  Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
24. Re:I Love Linux, but... by raddan · 2008-10-20 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  Value is a measure of how much we want or like something.
  Value is clearly more complicated than that. For example, Marx diffentiated value into social value, "use value", "exchange value", and price. This is much closer to the modern economic idea of value. Economists come up with metrics for use-value all the time-- and the idea is to facilitate proper calculation of exchange-value so that decisions can be made purely on a utilitarian basis. This is how we come to have figures like the economic value of human life.
25. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  your country's GDP for example.
  Canada?
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
26. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  This is an example of someone not understanding what a particular logical fallacy actually is, and throwing it against the wall hoping it will stick.
  While your response appears to have merit, it lacks substance. How exactly do you oppose my position? You haven't read my clarification post yet. Give it a read and rebut if you like. Bellyache all you want, but until you refute what I'm saying you don't have a leg to stand on.
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
27. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  If the Brooklyn Bridge were destroyed, what effect would it have on the local economy? There is your hidden value. The bridge produces value despite there being no price tag.
  But now you are suggesting that OSS can be destroyed which at current time is impossible.
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
28. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Americano · 2008-10-20 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  How exactly do you oppose my position?
  I don't think his statement is intended to "oppose your position". I think what he's done is pointed out that the logical fallacy you referenced doesn't apply to this situation. Or, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya... "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
29. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, that's a pretty good measure of value. Google had three choices
  Who was Google a benefactor to directly though? Who made the money?
  Google was the benefactor, and therefore we seem to be comparing apples and oranges. Sure you're correct in suggesting that there is value in OSS. The Linux foundation is correct in attributing value, but what I was pointing out was that trying to correlate this value with the decline of Microsoft or any other competitors, is flawed logic.
  Yes, the Linux Foundation has not suggested there is a correlation, but there is no other feasible reason for them to attribute a value to Linux unless to measure how successful it is and the only reason you would want to do that is to determine how much of the market you have taken from the other guys.
  Non Sequitor, checkmate.
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
30. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think his statement is intended to "oppose your position". I think what he's done is pointed out that the logical fallacy you referenced doesn't apply to this situation. Or, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya... "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
  I am a big picture thinker. I connect disparate facts, and sometimes I forget to fully support my arguments. Typically I let Slashdot figure it out for themselves, but I think that people are missing the boat on this thread.
  Yes, you are absolutely right. He is saying that. He's just incorrect. See my supporting arguments and feel free to debate them. If you decide not to debate them, I'll accept that as a nod from you, in support of them.
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
31. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Americano · 2008-10-20 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  I am a big picture thinker. I connect disparate facts, and sometimes I forget to fully support my arguments. Typically I let Slashdot figure it out for themselves, but I think that people are missing the boat on this thread.
  That sounds suspiciously like "if you don't know why I'm mad, I'm not going to bother explaining it." That argument doesn't hold any water from my girlfriend, so it's sure not going to hold any water when it's advanced by you.
  
  Yes, you are absolutely right. He is saying that. He's just incorrect. See my supporting arguments and feel free to debate them. If you decide not to debate them, I'll accept that as a nod from you, in support of them.
  I've read your "supporting arguments," and they still make no sense, as I indicated in my response. Your assertion that they're committing a logical fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc) is not supported in any post you've made, because there is no mention in the summary or the article that Linux Foundation has claimed "Linux is worth 25 Billion. Microsoft is losing market share. Therefore, Microsoft is losing market share because Linux is worth 25 Billion." So please, for us benighted ignoramuses, please explain how you arrive at the conclusion that they're committing this logical fallacy, or admit that you used the term improperly in an attempt to sound intelligent which has failed miserably.
32. Re:I Love Linux, but... by zenyu · 2008-10-20 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  The Port Authority could sell it if they so chose. Linux, on the other hand, cannot be sold in the same sense that you cannot sell the idea of a cloud.
  I have as much right to sell the Brooklyn Bridge as the Port Authority Corporation of NY and NJ does. The bridge is owned by the City of New York, and I assure you it would be easier to get the few thousand copyright holders of Linux to sell than it would be to get New York City to to sell the symbol of the unification of the five boroughs. In fact, it might be easier to get the Congress of the United States of America to patent apple pie and sell the exclusive right of manufacture to China.
  Most things in this world of ours have not been bought and sold within the last five minutes, and many things have never been bought or sold. This does not mean we can not estimate their economic value. In fact these estimates tend to be more conservative and ultimately more accurate than estimates based on sale values, as our banks have recently rediscovered. Sale values are for the most part based on irrational estimates of future earnings. Valuations based on actual economic productivity are retrospective rather than prospective so they lag true economic value but they also don't swing wildly like sale price based estimates and at any instant are more likely to be accurate than sale price based estimates.
  If you look at our most accurate economic indicators they are all retrospective. Sometimes the economists figure out we were in a recession after we've left it, but that's the price you pay for accuracy. Sale prices instead follow our collectively predicted the future values, which tend to move in the right general direction most of the time, but are usually too optimistic and are sometimes too pessimistic. "Market corrections" happen after prices have gone wildly in one direction, when all those more accurate, but lagging, economic indicators were going the other way; then when they get published, the prices adjust up or down to match the real numbers.
33. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2008-10-20 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with your "supporting arguments" is that there is simply no evidence in the article of the claim you assert they're making. If they had made such a claim, then of course it would be post hoc unless they presented additional evidence of causation. But they didn't. The logic of your argument is irrelevant, because it's factually incorrect.
  By being a "big picture thinker ... [who] connect[s] disparate facts" you are, I suspect, actually increasing the chances of making fallacious assumptions yourself. There's nothing wrong with trying to make connections, of course, but it's important to remember that sometimes (often, in fact) two widely separated trees are in fact nothing but that, with no forest in between them.
  If you decide not to debate them, I'll accept that as a nod from you, in support of them.
  If "silence equals assent" isn't on the list of classic fallacies, it should be.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
34. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Deanalator · 2008-10-20 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  What the crap are you talking about?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_bridge
  The bridge was purchased by the city for 15.5 million dollars.
35. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 11:44 · Score: 1
  
  I've read your "supporting arguments," and they still make no sense, as I indicated in my response. Your assertion that they're committing a logical fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc) is not supported in any post you've made, because there is no mention in the summary or the article that Linux Foundation has claimed "Linux is worth 25 Billion. Microsoft is losing market share. Therefore, Microsoft is losing market share because Linux is worth 25 Billion." So please, for us benighted ignoramuses, please explain how you arrive at the conclusion that they're committing this logical fallacy, or admit that you used the term improperly in an attempt to sound intelligent which has failed miserably.
  Why else would Linux Foundation make a claim to the net value of Linux? They can't sell it. They can't hedge against it. They can't borrow against that figure. Tell me why they are releasing this information. What is your opinion on the reason they are placing this value on the Linux ecosystem? I told you what I thought about it.
  But if they can hold it up and show people how they have grown, well the likelihood is that they would try to demonstrate that the growth has eaten into their competition's market share, but this is a comparison of apples and oranges but also this is Non Sequitur. The less plausible explanation to attribute this growth of Linux is the growth in the circumference of Linux nerds.
  It is more likely that the growth of Linux adoption has come from the fact that it's free, but not necessarily at the expense of any competitor. Apart from a sharp downturn after the bubble, Microsoft's MSFT stock has remained at a seemingly constant valuation.
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
36. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 12:01 · Score: 0
  
  oh poppycock, of course the brooklyn bridge can be sold and if you're interested in can give you a fantastic deal.
37. Re:I Love Linux, but... by mfh · 2008-10-20 12:02 · Score: 1
  
  If "silence equals assent" isn't on the list of classic fallacies, it should be.
  On the internet, it certainly does. Thank you for responding. This response may be of interest to you, as it summarizes my response to a similar reply.
  I was suggesting that my interpretation of the Linux Foundation's move here would only to be one that could suggest that they have eaten into their competitor's market share. Why else would they release the figure? What do you think made them want to establish a value on the Linux ecosystem? They certainly can't do anything with that number, can they? I took it as that they were suggesting some kind of value was associated to their cause, which is the opposite of the cause of Microsoft. OSS has worked directly against Microsoft's interests and therefore that number could only represent $25 billion that Microsoft missed out on... and that suggestion is the fallacy I was pointing at, because it couldn't possible be equivalent.
  
  --
  The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
38. Re:I Love Linux, but... by colourmyeyes · 2008-10-20 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  For what it's worth, you're correct. mfh's use of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" is misplaced and incorrect. Why can't people just say "Oh, my bad."?
  
  Oh, that's right. It's the internet.
  
  --
  My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
39. Re:I Love Linux, but... by optimus2861 · 2008-10-20 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  I figured he was joking anyway, because of this:
  
  If I had to choose between a house to live in and air to breath, I'd choose the air. If I had to choose between sex and internet, I'd choose sex. If I had to choose between 100$ and a copy of GH3+controller, I'd choose Guitar Hero. If I had to choose between 200$ and two Guitar Hero packs, I might choose the money, or I might choose the GH packs in hope of a resale.
  In summation, the guy chose to have no home and a video game instead of a home and money. Sex is no longer a choice at that point, it's only fantasy.
40. Re:I Love Linux, but... by isorox · 2008-10-20 20:13 · Score: 1
  
  Both people arguing that the bridge is "free" are idiots. There is no "hidden value." The cost of the bridge was, simply put, the labor of the workers who built it and the cost of their raw materials. That's the price tag. The value it produces is it's return to local economy in the amount of gas the average commuter saves as a result of the bridge being in place.
  So what's the value of the Sun? Nobody built it, you can't sell it, you can't buy it, yet it's the most valuable thing in the solar system. Our species can survive without anything, even the Earth, except the Sun.
41. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 20:17 · Score: 1
  
  What's the point of that question? The sun is not bought or sold; it therefore has no value for our purposes.
  Yes, it's very important. But without buyers or sellers, putting a price tag on it is meaningless. It's priceless.
  The bridge is not priceless. I can tell you what the fair market value of that bridge ought to be.
  And do you know why? Because there's a market for bridges. There ain't no market for the sun.
42. Re:I Love Linux, but... by justinlee37 · 2008-10-20 20:23 · Score: 1
  
  And before you come charging in to save the day with your valiant cries of "woe, but if the sun has no value because it can't be bought or sold, then Linux must also have an indiscernible value because it can't be bought or sold!", I have to break your bubble by letting you know that since Linux has comparable alternatives which do command a price, we can estimate that the value of Linux is equivalent to the value of these other products. In other words, while there might not be a market for Linux, per se, there is a market for operating systems, and we can use that market to make inferences about how "valuable" companies might consider Linux to be.
  The sub does not have comparable alternatives which are bought and sold. There is absolutely no precedent for giving the sun a valuation -- nor is there any need to do so.
  Giving Linux a valuation, on the other hand, might have a purpose. It'd be useful to know, for example, how much money someone could save by choosing, say, Linux over Windows for their company's IT solution
43. Re:I Love Linux, but... by donaldm · 2008-10-20 22:13 · Score: 1
  
  Linux and any other collaborative open source project could be sold theoretically, if all copyright holders would agree on the terms.
  Err no! You would also have to get around the GPL as well and that has teeth if pushed. Once you license your software to GPL it is yours however you cannot just pull it and sell it off although forking can be done, but this can lead to a legal nightmare, however companies like Redhat (US128m profit this last quarter) seem to do very well and don't infringe the GPL.
  
  The BSD parts of a Linux distribution can be brought in-house as long as the purchaser agrees to the BSD license. Taking a quick look through my Fedora 9 distribution (1790 packages) about 168 are BSD and 1118 are GPL (LGPL, GPL, GPL2 and GPL3) and 98 apache licenses with the rest a mixture. For anyone interested out of the GPL packages 66 are GPL3.
  
  Forget about all the packages I have in Fedora 9, Linux is really the kernel and that is licensed under GPL2 so no one can really purchase it so anyone is free to add and if possible improve on it although it is up to the maintainers to decide if they want to include the changes in the official distribution.
  
  How I arrived at the above (note: you don't need to be root to do the following):
  
  $ rpm -qa --queryformat '%{License}\n' |grep -i bsd|wc -l
  168
  $ rpm -qa --queryformat '%{License}\n' |grep -i gpl|wc -l
  1118
  $ rpm -qa --queryformat '%{License}\n' |grep -iE 'gpl3|gplv3'|wc -l
  66
  $ rpm -qa --queryformat '%{License}\n' |grep -i apache|wc -l
  98
  
  --
  There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
44. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Americano · 2008-10-21 02:48 · Score: 1
  
  Why else would Linux Foundation make a claim to the net value of Linux? They can't sell it. They can't hedge against it. They can't borrow against that figure. Tell me why they are releasing this information.
  For the same reason any advocacy body does anything: getting your brand name out in the press with some positive association, so that people will be more likely to have a favorable impression when it comes time to make a decision about whether to buy Sun, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Linux, etc. "I read that Linux's ecosystem is worth 25Bn dollars... that must mean there's a lot of people out there using it successfully, let's check it out."
  
  But if they can hold it up and show people how they have grown, well the likelihood is that they would try to demonstrate that the growth has eaten into their competition's market share,
  That's a lovely assertion. Except nowhere in the article, summary, or any related supporting text about this study that I've seen do they make any such claim. You are assuming facts not yet in evidence. Perhaps they will make this claim in the full text of their study, in which case you may be right that they are comparing themselves to Microsoft's market share. But until you can show that they've made that claim, your arguments are pure, unfounded speculation as to their motives & reasoning.
  
  but this is a comparison of apples and oranges but also this is Non Sequitur.
  Do you just throw random latin into your posts in an attempt to sound more intelligent? The point is that you've claimed, repeatedly, that the Linux foundation is making claims which they have not made, according to any evidence you've provided. It doesn't matter if it's a bad comparison, or if it's not a logical conclusion based on the facts in evidence. They have not made the claims. You are assuming things about their motivations which you have no evidence to back up - that makes you foolish, no matter how much Latin you throw at the problem to cover it up.
  
  It is more likely that the growth of Linux adoption has come from the fact that it's free, but not necessarily at the expense of any competitor.
  And they have not claimed that the size of their market is at the expense of a competitor. Only an idiot would assume this is a zero-sum market, where any gain by one party must be offset by a loss to another. Linux is worth some slice of the market, and they've attempted to place a value on that slice. There are many possible explanations for how they got that market - by eating into the market share of more costly Unix alternatives, by replacing some Microsoft solutions, by growing whole new segments of the market, and by simply benefitting from the increasingly digital nature of our lifestyles - the entire market for computing has grown, and so has Linux with it. They haven't claimed it's a zero-sum market, and even if they did make that claim, they would STILL not be guilty of the logical fallacy you've claimed they are.
  
  Apart from a sharp downturn after the bubble, Microsoft's MSFT stock has remained at a seemingly constant valuation.
  There are so many holes in this reasoning: by your own claims, they could NOT make the claim that, "We're worth 25Bn. Microsoft has lost value. Therefore our value comes from Microsoft's losses." If it's true that MSFT's valuation has remained the same, then any person with a shred of a functioning brain would look and say, "Microsoft has not lost value, though." In addition, you're confusing "market capitalization" with "market value". The amount of money a company's stock is worth is at best a lagging indicator of the value they create, and is subject to all kinds of market pressures that are not created by or accounted for by Linux's existence. You can't look at a stock price and say, "MSFT has lost 25Bn dollars this yea
45. Re:I Love Linux, but... by Americano · 2008-10-21 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  Since we're gratuitously linking our own posts, this response may be of interest to you, as it dismantles your response to my similar reply.
  
  I took it as that they were suggesting some kind of value was associated to their cause, which is the opposite of the cause of Microsoft. OSS has worked directly against Microsoft's interests
  Really?! So OSS is simply the "Anti-Microsoft movement"? They have no other raison d'etre other than to bring down Microsoft? I bet that would be news to many in the OSS world, I hope you've informed them that the revolution is now. And for that matter, who is "OSS"? Last I checked it was a wide assortment of people with very little central guidance other than a principled belief that software should be "free as in speech", and even their degree of adherence to that principle varies widely from project to project - witness the number of "OSS" licenses out there. By painting Linux as simply "anti-Microsoft," you do a huge disservice to the many people who work on and have contributed to Linux & projects that run on Linux. Linux competes with many other platforms in many different spaces, it's not just "against Microsoft."
  
  therefore that number could only represent $25 billion that Microsoft missed out on
  You've got such a thing for Microsoft you don't seem to understand that Linux is also competing against Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and many other variants of Unix on servers & workstations; Symbian, WinCE, MacOS, on phone / PDA devices; Mac OS on desktops... numerous other smaller embedded OS systems & custom applications. There is no "single market" which Linux competes in that is just "Linux vs. Microsoft," and to the extent that Linux treats any market as "simply us against Microsoft," they will lose to some other competitor that they've been ignoring. There are MANY possible explanations for how Linux has achieved a 25Bn dollar value in the market, but nowhere has anybody (aside from you) made the claim that the Linux Foundation has stated that this 25Bn value is tied to a 25Bn loss in Microsoft's share of the market.
  
  and that suggestion is the fallacy I was pointing at, because it couldn't possible be equivalent.
  I'll say this one final time in big bold letters, maybe it'll finally sink in:
  
  YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON ADVANCING THE CLAIM THAT LINUX'S VALUE OF 25 BILLION IS SOLELY ATTRIBUTABLE TO MICROSOFT LOSING AN EQUIVALENT AMOUNT OF THE MARKET.
  
  Microsoft hasn't made the claim. The Linux foundation hasn't made the claim. Nobody in the Linux world has made the claim. If you have evidence other than unfounded speculation to support your claims, then by all means share it. If you do not have evidence to provide, then simply admit to yourself that you are creating wildly speculative hypotheses, and go on about your business with the newfound knowledge that inserting random Latin phrases into your Slashdot posts does not make you sound smart, it just makes you sound like someone who doesn't know how to use Latin phrases properly.
46. Re:I Love Linux, but... by MightyDrunken · 2008-10-21 23:44 · Score: 1
  
  Not to try to stop a good argument but..
  
  just because Linux foundation says the Linux footprint is worth $25 Billion, is a fallicy because nobody can purchase it.
  Oh really?.
  
  --
  The most dangerous drug
Oooooops by mfh · 2008-10-20 03:55 · Score: 1

Pardon my spelling errs. :)
fallicy -> fallacy
immmmmediate (as intended)

--
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Air by mcgrew · 2008-10-20 04:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

How much is air worth?
It's sad that there are so many people who worship the almighty dollar that they have to put a price on everything.
Linux, like air, is priceless. Saying it is worth $n devalues it.

--
Free Martian Whores!
1. Re:Air by pilgrim23 · 2008-10-20 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Well if you had 30 lawyers form a trade group, and sue every user a standard 5-6 grand per use then multiply by how many.....oh wait, it is licensed as free.
  Humm well then! Get an advertising firm. Have them work for a powerful software company that makes superior products, design a slick ad campaign staring has-been comedians and zillionaire CEOS and...oh wait, their products suck and aren't Linux anyway. humm...
  Looks to me like Linux truly is priceless in the one true coin of the realm: Lawyer and advertising fees...
  
  --
  - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
2. Re:Air by sakdoctor · 2008-10-20 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  So valuing something devalues it?
  You must be using a newfangled quantum valuation system.
3. Re:Air by mcgrew · 2008-10-20 04:27 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Putting a price on the priceless devalues it. "Priceless" means it has infinite value, and any dollar amount put on your infinitely useful object/endeavor/material brings its value DOWN.
  There is more to life than money.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
4. Re:Air by Creepy+Crawler · 2008-10-20 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  ---There is more to life than money.
  Not to a Capitalist.
  --
  
  Mod parent up! by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thurs, Nov 31, @13:37
5. Re:Air by Hijacked+Public · 2008-10-20 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  Then why do send their children to college?
  
  --
  "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
6. Re:Air by Monchanger · 2008-10-20 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  I beg to differ.
  We have to be accurate when applying a term like "priceless," and certainly not make a false analogy of Linux to air. (Why not compare water to Linux? You can pay for both of them, just as you can get air and Linux for free.)
  Currently, air is available to all at no cost, assuming no special circumstances. Thus it not priceless but free, as in having a value of $0. Its value goes up quite quickly when one ascends into the sky/space or underground/water, which is due to its being a necessity (priceless), though the price does not escalate to infinity due to the increasing likelihood of new suppliers (see "demand & supply").
  But these values are not for the air itself, but for the SERVICE of supplying it where it is needed. I can't find a memorable Sesame Street skit about a guy selling air for my fellow /.ers, but I'm wouldn't doubt that some day crazy rich people in L.A. will start importing "Natural iodized air from the Rockies" like bottled water.
  While you can acquire a Linux-based OS for free, most businesses will have additional costs (as they do with Windows in addition to licensing costs). When gives Linux the (what sees to be haphazardly-assessed) value here is not a price, but the availability of opportunity of providing these operating system services.
7. Re:Air by Hijacked+Public · 2008-10-20 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  I think you misunderstand the use of the word in the post you replied to.
  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/priceless
  (See #2)
  
  --
  "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
8. Re:Air by Vainglorious+Coward · 2008-10-20 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure I've read this story and this comment before. Ah, yes - Four years ago
  
  --
  My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
9. Re:Air by DaveV1.0 · 2008-10-20 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  Putting a price on something can change the value of said thing, especially if the thing's desirability is tied directly to its price and availability.
  The popularity of Linux is tied directly to it's price. Linux's price is why it is used by hobbyists, Google, IBM, Asus, etc. And, if they don't use and support Linux, then Linux doesn't have an ecosystem to value.
  And, to be honest, Linux's popularity is tied to it's Unix-like nature leading to it's adoption GNU because they could not get HURD finished. And, it's the fact that it came out before so many other "free" O/Ses. Linux is not better than many other O/Ses, just different. If Linux had not been adopted by GNU, other O/Ses like FreeBSD, Minuette or even MMURTL(a truly free O/S because it is in the public domain), would probably be taking Linux's place in a number of niches.
  
  --
  There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
10. Re:Air by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 06:15 · Score: 0
  
  Then why do send their children to college?
  To pay for their retirement.
11. Re:Air by turbidostato · 2008-10-20 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  ""Priceless" means it has infinite value"
  Your argumentation being?
  Water is colorless; does it mean "water has infinite colour"? Snails are footless; does it mean they have an infinite number of feet?
  Priceless means "without a price tag"; nothing more, nothing less. If anything, putting a price tag on something that can't have one (not that I'm saying Linux belongs to such category or not) is a nonsense, not a devaluation.
12. Re:Air by mcgrew · 2008-10-20 06:30 · Score: 1
  
  The dictionary disagrees with you.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
13. Re:Air by V!NCENT · 2008-10-20 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  TFA talks about the worth of the Linux financial ecosystem and not the worth of the Linux ecosystem itself.
  
  --
  Here be signatures
14. Re:Air by turbidostato · 2008-10-20 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  "The dictionary disagrees with you."
  I don't think so. And semantics surely don't. That a word can have many connotative meanings doesn't mean any of them are applicable within context. Within this context Linux is priceless because you can't apply a price tag to it (it holds value not money related), certainly not because it has a price tag and it says "infinite"
15. Re:Air by techno-vampire · 2008-10-20 18:10 · Score: 1
  
  How much is air worth?
  None sing hymns to breath, but oh, to be without it!
  
  --
  Good, inexpensive web hosting
16. Re:Air by Weedlekin · 2008-10-20 20:06 · Score: 1
  
  Today's episode of Pedant time is brought to you by the Department Of Irritating Areholes.
  "Water is colorless"
  Pure water is actually a very light shade of turquoise blue, although you need a lot of it to see its colour. It only appears colourless in (relatively) small quantities.
  "Snails are footless"
  Snails and other gastropods technically have one foot.
  
  --
  I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Obvious conclusion of a study... by Vexler · 2008-10-20 04:07 · Score: 1

...done by SCO.
Simply Put by DaMattster · 2008-10-20 04:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Linux is priceless in value precisely because it is F/OSS
1. Re:Simply Put by RalphTheWonderLlama · 2008-10-20 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, who would buy it?
  
  --
  simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
2. Re:Simply Put by aztektum · 2008-10-20 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly what I was thinking, hence why I tagged the article "whocares?"
  I use Linux daily because I can get things done in a way that works best for me. That makes it far too important a tool to put a dollar figure on, IMO.
  
  --
  :: aztek ::
  No sig for you!!
Not something to brag about? by Hikaru79 · 2008-10-20 04:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

Even let's say that the $25B value is accurate and represents something meaningful, it seems to be a pretty depressing number for the entire ecosystem, isn't it? Microsoft as a publicly traded company alone is currently worth $216.11B and I'm sure we can all agree that the entire Windows "ecosystem" is worth at least that much over again. So the Linux ecosystem is worth, what, 5% of Microsoft's value? And this is at a time when Linux is at a historic "high" while Microsoft is in a pretty firm slump...

Not that I think this is an accurate or meaningful number.
1. Re:Not something to brag about? by glop · 2008-10-20 04:25 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  25 Billion $ is a lot of money.
  Additionally, if we follow your reasoning, many companies that have products that could be sold for Linux will think : Linux = 5% of Windows. They will conclude that they could increase their sales by 5% by supporting Linux.
  That could sound like an interesting deal for many companies.
2. Re:Not something to brag about? by Calsar · 2008-10-20 05:02 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  The 5% figure sounds reasonable. Microsoft isn't just windows. It is the Microsoft Office Suite, SQL Server, Visual Studio, .Net and a whole host of other software packages. If you wanted to get an open source "ecosystem" value equivalent to Microsoft you would have to include several other open source projects like Open Office, MySQL, Eclipse, Java, J2EE, and many others.
3. Re:Not something to brag about? by DaveV1.0 · 2008-10-20 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. Those companies will reference the Pareto principle and decide that the 5% increase in sales is not worth the cost of support and development and the possibility they may infringe on the GPL.
  
  --
  There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
4. Re:Not something to brag about? by gad_zuki! · 2008-10-20 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  Except Microsoft is not just windows. Xbox, office, etc.
5. Re:Not something to brag about? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 07:33 · Score: 0
  
  If Linux were only worth $25 billion Microsoft could buy up all of the copyrights, and all of the companies that develop it, and still have 25 billion left in cash reserves. With that kind of leverage they could employ the top developers to fork Linux for windows 8, and they would have a huge lead on just about anyone else. Additionally any code they developed afterwords would be licensed anyway they want it. Clearly Linux has to be worth a lot more then $25B as an 'ecosystem.' Personally I'd take the total number of lines of code and multiply by $100. That might give a more accurate cost of development. Then the total cost is probably a multiple of that.
6. Re:Not something to brag about? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 12:48 · Score: 0
  
  How much would Microsoft be worth if it gave away most of its software stack away for free, including desktop/server/sql/office/etc? ;-) Food for thought.
7. Re:Not something to brag about? by westlake · 2008-10-20 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  And this is at a time when Linux is at a historic "high" while Microsoft is in a pretty firm slump...
  .
  Microsoft is the only US industrial company to be given a AAA rating by S&P and Moody's in ten years.
  It's a damn short list:
  In addition to Microsoft: ADP, Exxon Mobil, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson. Rounding out the list for S&P is Pfizer; for Moody's, it's Toyota. Microsoft mint [Sept 27]
  This is a slump? Operating System Market Share, Top Operating System Share Trend
No bids by jamesl · 2008-10-20 04:17 · Score: 1

Like the mortgage backed securities embeded in bank asset portfolios, there's no market for "Linux" so anybody naming a price is spreading fairy dust. Maybe they can get the US Treasury to make a bid.
I thought Linux was free by unassimilatible · 2008-10-20 04:21 · Score: 1

But technically, so is everything else I download.

--
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
YOU FAIL by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 04:26 · Score: 0

You missed the '!'
1. Re:YOU FAIL by BronsCon · 2008-10-20 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, he (she? it?) missed a lot of !s, some 1s and a 'ONE'
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
That's NOTHING! by DoofusOfDeath · 2008-10-20 04:27 · Score: 4, Funny

25 Billion? That's nothing. Have you seen how much just one of RIAA's infringed songs is worth???
Okay I will explain my logic. by mfh · 2008-10-20 04:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

A occurred, then B occurred.
Therefore, A caused B.
A: Linux is worth $25 Billion
B: Microsoft market share has decreased
Therefore A caused B? No. There is no evidence of that.
I love Linux but that kind of logic is simply flawed and therefore people who love Microsoft could use it against OSS in their sales pitch. A good part of OSS is the ability to have groupthink be thwarted by the input from many open (freely offered) sources. I happen to be a proponent of OSS.
A: Linux is worth $25 Billion
B: Microsoft market share has increased
Therefore A caused B?
Linux foundation is suggesting that their value of Linux is somehow relevant. It's not that relevant.
How can you put a value on something that is inherently invaluable? How do you account for the savings of using free products that also cause additional savings (from avoiding security holes, for example).
You cannot attribute a price on the value of Linux. It's simply priceless and that was the intent of my original comment.

--
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
1. Re:Okay I will explain my logic. by Americano · 2008-10-20 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  A: Linux is worth $25 Billion
  B: Microsoft market share has decreased
  I think I missed some part where any mention was made of Microsoft's market share. Where are you getting that the Linux Foundation made that assertion, or concluded that B was a consequence of A?
  
  As stated in the article, and the summary, the Linux Foundation asserting that "the Linux ecosystem is worth 25 Billion dollars" is not an example of the logical fallacy you're claiming they've made.
  
  You cannot attribute a price on the value of Linux. It's simply priceless and that was the intent of my original comment.
  "Priceless" is not the same as "having no value." Linux certainly has value - if nothing else, the amount of time & effort required to write the code has value, and the cost of paying someone to write that code has value. That doesn't mean you can "buy Linux" for a price, but the effort that was put into creating Linux certainly has a value associated with it.
2. Re:Okay I will explain my logic. by rtfa-troll · 2008-10-20 08:44 · Score: 1
  
  Your post is based on a misunderstanding of the original poster. Actually "value" doesn't have any meaning at all. It is pure junk business speak as in "we deliver value to our shareholders". In this particular case there are at least two different things. "Purchase value", which is what you are talking about and "value to mankind" or perhaps "value to business" which is what most other people here are talking about. Even those have definitions which will vary according to exactly what question you ask.
  A typical question, which has a real valid answer, is "what is the insurable value of Linux". In other words; if everybody who needed one took out an insurance policy against the loss of Linux what is the maximum reasonable monetary value that those polices could be worth. That is limited by the maximum loss which can be sustained which is equal to the lesser of amount of business which will be lost or the amount of effort it will take to replace Linux.
  You are wrong that linux is "invaluable" since, given enough effort and money, it could almost certainly be replaced.
  A good example of a use of this is in deciding how much lobbying power Linux might have. If Windows is worth e.g. $10Billion and Linux is worth $25Billion, then an effort by Microsoft to destroy Linux via legislative means might cause a serious backlash. That kind of argument is useful with various "semi-corrupt" politicians who value campaign contributions highly. On the other hand, it's also a reason for those politicians to wonder why Linux isn't contributing it's "share".
  
  --
  =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Let's see... by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 04:39 · Score: 0

I contributed 0.01% to the Linux source. Please contact me immediately for details on where to send my $2.5M check.
Mod by Shohat · 2008-10-20 04:41 · Score: 4, Funny

How much is Linux worth today? That's a question the Linux Foundation is trying to answer in a new report expected to be released on Wednesday.
There's no need for that, we already have the answer (see title).
Mod parent recursive !!!

--
My Starcraft 2 Blog
1. Re:Mod by morgan_greywolf · 2008-10-20 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  Mod parent recursive !!!
  I did, but now I can't seem to read it or my own post!
  $ chmod -R +1 ../.. $ ls -al $ .: Permission denied.
  
  --
  My blog
2. Re:Mod by Yvan256 · 2008-10-20 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  Now THAT is funny!
  Mod parent funnier!
3. Re:Mod by Kjella · 2008-10-20 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  Mod parent recursive !!!
  I tried to make a recusive moderation, but it keeps telling me it got an overflow error.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Hmm? by Moraelin · 2008-10-20 04:41 · Score: 2, Informative

Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand in which way it is a Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, means almost literally what its translation says: Y happened after X, therefore Y happened because of X. In other words it's mistaking chronology for causation. E.g.,
- I bought a new cell phone last year, and this year I occasionally have migraines. Therefore, the cell phone is obviously the cause of my headaches.
- Bill Hicks spoke against God and religion, then (after many years of it) Bill Hicks died relatively young. Of cancer. Obviously his lack of faith is the cause of his illness.
- I got a raise, and soon thereafter the latest economic bubble burst and the credit crunch kicked in. Obviously my raise the cause of the recession. My wage is that big a burden on the economy ;)
- Jane bought a new TFT monitor, and soon thereafter she got diagnosed with melanoma. Therefore the radiation from TFT monitors must have caused it.
- John switched from Linux to BSD, and soon afterwards he ended up in a mental institution. Therefore BSD drives people insane.
Etc.
The common theme there is really this: "happened after, therefore happened because". Temporal succession => causality.
The difference between it and, say, "correlation != causation" is that here usually you don't even have enough of a sample to even have a proper correlation. You have two random anecdotes and the only thing that connects them is the order of their timestamps, so to speak, and that succession is taken to mean causation.
But you probably knew that already.
So, anyway, assuming that you did mean that particular fallacy, in which way do you see it at work there? It doesn't seem obvious at all to me, and I'm genuinely curious. What case of chronology mistaken for casuality do you have in mind there?

--
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Tivo and VMware by xgr3gx · 2008-10-20 04:55 · Score: 0

What about companies that owe thier existance to Linux?
2 I can think of are Tivo and VMWare. Both of their products are based on Linux
Are their values part of the ecosystem?

--
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
1. Re:Tivo and VMware by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 07:14 · Score: 0
  
  You make it sound like TiVo and VMware could not exist without Linux (i.e., "owe their existence..."). Surely they could have based their products on something other than Linux. They benefit from the existence of linux, but they could exist without it -- they would just have to charge more for their products.
  (For proof, see ReplayTV, which is of course now defunct, but not because it didn't use Linux. But it did exist.)
2. Re:Tivo and VMware by xgr3gx · 2008-10-20 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, they could have based their products on some other proprietary OS, but I would imagine the startup costs would have been significantly higher, as well as the licensing cost.
  I know BSD could have been used, but I was referring to a non-free OS.
  So maybe they don't wholly owe their existance to Linux, but with out a free and open OS available, they may not have been possible.
  
  --
  Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
3. Re:Tivo and VMware by WhiteHorse-The+Origi · 2008-10-21 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  True, and the New York Stock Exchange runs on redhat. How much is NYSE worth? How about all the mobile phones? Embedded devices? I'm sure D-Link owes it's success to Linux.
No, it is not. by PineGreen · 2008-10-20 05:13 · Score: 1

This is how much it would have been if it was for sale. But it is not and neither does it function as a sellable entity...
I'm not your guy, buddy! by Verdatum · 2008-10-20 05:15 · Score: 1

How about some of that there Internet money? Is Linus willing to fight the Laughing Baby and the Chocolate Rain guy for it?
the best answer is not priceless by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 05:18 · Score: 0

Since the best answer to the question "what X is worth?" is always "what somebody is willing to pay for it", the answer to the question what Linux is worth is "what Microsoft would pay to make it disappear". If we pretend that there was a single entity in a position to control Linux and make it disappear, Microsoft would make a huge effort to determine what their highest bid to that entity should be. Thus a price in dollars can certainly be determined (well, Microsoft could but wouldn't disclose if they did and won't because they have no incentive to spend the high-priced MBA hours needed).
A problem though remains... by Moraelin · 2008-10-20 05:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem that remains, though is: just because you can think up a random number to put on something, doesn't mean it's the right number.
And if economists were that good at calculating the values, the USSR would still be going strong and would have the strongest economy in the world. After all, that was the whole idea: instead of letting the free market work it out by trial and error, have a handful of smart guys who calculate exactly how many bycicles are needed and exactly how much should they cost. It should be much more efficient, right? It didn't quite work out that way.
So, yes, some people like to put a dollar value on anything in sight. It doesn't mean it's the right one.
The only moment when you can know the real value, is, yes, when you can apply what we knew at least since Publilius Syrus: "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." As long as you can't have a purchaser, that value you put on it is just a pointless abstraction. Again, I know that some people love to paint the whole world in dollar worths, but it doesn't mean it actually means anything or that you can do anything with that number.
E.g., they even put a $ worth on a human life. What _can_ you do with that number? Can I come shoot you if I have that money on hand to pay as weregeld? Can I buy you? Or what? Exactly what _does_ that number tell me?
In practice it's just an abstraction used to handwave stuff like "see, the legal speed on highways should by higher/lower because it means X million dollars in lost lives, vs Y million gained in commerce along that road." But it's ultimately just a made up excuse, and usually working backwards from the conclusion one wants to an acceptable excuse for it.

--
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Baz by thinkloop · 2008-10-20 06:10 · Score: 1

The way to think about it is to estimate the maximum amount the world is willing to pay NOT to LOSE their Linux. RedHat would pay at least half their worth (2.6B / 2 = 1.3B) to stop you from pressing the NukeAllKernels button. Cisco would pay at least a sixth of their market cap (109B / 6 = 18B). That's already almost 20B! How much would you pay to not have your Linux nuked?
1. Re:Baz by John+Hasler · 2008-10-20 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  > How much would you pay to not have your Linux nuked?
  How much would you pay not to have your tv magically transformed into a purple rhinoceros?
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
2. Re:Baz by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 17:09 · Score: 0
  
  Thats not a fair comparison. I never said how much would you pay not to have Linux turn into genital herpes. It's how much would you pay not to lose it. 99.9% of the planet couldn't care less about Linux. 0.05% would just switch to Windows. 0.04% would pay no more than a hundred bucks. Then the last 0.01% like RedHat would pay big bucks. Which feels like is much more than 25B.
  I would pay upto 10 grand to keep my TV. Some people don't care about TV. But to answer your question purple rhinos are frickin cool! I would actually PAY a few thousand bucks for my TV to turn into one.
3. Re:Baz by WhiteHorse-The+Origi · 2008-10-21 13:54 · Score: 1
  
  More simply, take the sum of all computers running Linux and multiply by the average price of a proprietary OS. You could separate servers and desktops to get more accurate numbers. Additionally, you'd need to add the development cost it would take to make a proprietary OS on-par with Linux, say 1,000,000,000,000 man hours?
Value of Linux > Value of Vista by Tubal-Cain · 2008-10-20 06:22 · Score: 1

Vista cost $6 billion to develop, according to Wikipedia
$25B? by BronsCon · 2008-10-20 06:29 · Score: 1

What would that be if we had Microsoft's market share?

--
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Re:Don't forget to pay your by Tubal-Cain · 2008-10-20 06:36 · Score: 1

teabaggers.
Isn't that term reserved for people who play FPSs? Since we are using Linux, our exposure to FPSs is rather limited.
Juniper's JunOS is FreeBSD based by imp · 2008-10-20 07:01 · Score: 1

Juniper's JunOS is FreeBSD based. It wouldn't make sense to count most of Juniper's revenues as part of the Linux EcoSystem. While they have acquired a small number of Linux-based startups, the vast majority of revenue is from is FreeBSD JunOS software. Oh, and all that hardware...
How do you separate out the difference between the two anyway?
Value... by AliasMarlowe · 2008-10-20 07:10 · Score: 1

Value can only be attributed towards things that can be bought and sold.
In most everyday cases, this is true. However precise monetary value can also be assigned to things which cannot be bought or sold, or which are illegal to trade. Consider the life insurance policy taken out on a spouse, for instance. A precise monetary value is attached to the loss of the spouse. This cannot be the replacement cost to buy a new spouse, since buying and selling spouses is not legal.

--
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I think we passed that long time ago by BigGerman · 2008-10-20 07:15 · Score: 1

For example, it is a bit of public knowledge that Amazon runs on Linux. Amazon is what, 30B business? I know about the whole bunch of other first-tier companies that have their entire infrastructure on Linux as well.
Development? by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 07:17 · Score: 0

Hmmm, aren't they just trying to figure out what everything is worth in terms of development hours invested?
I'm betting much more than $25 billion by John+Jamieson · 2008-10-20 07:23 · Score: 1

Lets pretend that you could actually buy the Linux ecosystem. I believe MS would pay over $50 billion just to get rid of it, let alone to aquire some of the tech.
I often hear that the value of an object is whatever someone is willing to pay, so I say - the Linux ecosystem for $25 billion undervalued!
Re:I Love Capr Cod, but... by noshellswill · 2008-10-20 07:26 · Score: 0

Mebby the Home-Next-Door" argument can be applied here. I refuse to sell my Cape Cod view bungalow. Period. No offered price will induce me to sell. So somebody goes to the (similar) property next-door and starts making offers. At $10-M a sale is concluded. I then get a tax-bill based on the next-door property valuation. Who could argue? Who could argue and win a court-case against the county tax_man ??
Nope by mfh · 2008-10-20 07:54 · Score: 1

If the entire Linux technology sphere magically vanished overnight (don't ask me how), would the damage to the economy be in excess of $25 billion? Just because there's no liquidity doesn't mean there's no value.
Nothing would happen because OSS is by definition FREE TO USE, and therefore it cannot disappear unless people just stop using it. The only reason they would stop using it is if it was banned because terrorists get funding from it and in order to prove that, they would have to prove it had value. OH SH-

--
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Sue by mfh · 2008-10-20 08:22 · Score: 1

I then get a tax-bill based on the next-door property valuation. Who could argue? Who could argue and win a court-case against the county tax_man ??
Then you sue because they are different houses. Home appraisers would be called in on both sides and your home's true value would be established, regardless of whether you chose to sell or not. And you would be a fool not to sell your $10M home if it was that inflated (and your argument suggests that it was inflated).

--
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Ecosystem??? by dreamchaser · 2008-10-20 08:27 · Score: 1

It's fucking software, not life. It's not an ecosystem. Stop reassigning the definitions of words.
1. Re:Ecosystem??? by mikael · 2008-10-20 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  It makes sense. In an ecosystem, every species depends on certain resources and produces others. The net result is to form a network of interdependent links.
  With Linux, there are a large number of corporations, companies and self-employed consultants/contractors who exchange services for money. Application developers depend on GUI and API developers who in turn depend on device driver developers, who depend on kernel developers. All depend on compiler developers who depend on development tools.
  
  --
  Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
25 Million Users by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 10:50 · Score: 0

...according to estimations. That means each of us is worth $1000 in average.
I feel very cheap.
$50,000 by SL+Baur · 2008-10-20 11:38 · Score: 1

You can't sell the Linux ecosystem, and if you believe you can buy it
It's been tried before ... http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/linux-kernel-cost.html
More than Windows Server by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-20 17:21 · Score: 0

Windows Server generates 5B a year in revenue. Companies are usually worth about 10 times their revenue (especially when their variable costs are so low). So if Windows Server was a company it would be worth 50B. Linux has more market share than Windows in servers. Plus a ridiculous amount of appliances (routers, switches, etc.), lots of netbooks (eeeeeeeeeeee pc), and a few desktops (ubuntu). So the answer is 100B.
Thank you,
Patent Pending
Not So Fast by mfh · 2008-10-21 05:52 · Score: 1

For the same reason any advocacy body does anything: getting your brand name out in the press with some positive association, so that people will be more likely to have a favorable impression when it comes time to make a decision about whether to buy Sun, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Linux, etc. "I read that Linux's ecosystem is worth 25Bn dollars... that must mean there's a lot of people out there using it successfully, let's check it out."
$25 Billion is peanuts compared to the size of Microsoft. This does not factor. The ecosystem of Microsoft is in the trillions. This number would work against Linux that way. The only way you could sell it is by looking at the rates of expansion and trying to compare them.

That's a lovely assertion. Except nowhere in the article, summary, or any related supporting text about this study that I've seen do they make any such claim.
I extrapolated that as the only feasible cause for their concern. There is no other viable reason, and you have not presented one yet.

Do you just throw random latin into your posts in an attempt to sound more intelligent?
At this point you have completely discredited yourself.

--
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
1. Re:Not So Fast by Americano · 2008-10-21 06:30 · Score: 1
  
  $25 Billion is peanuts compared to the size of Microsoft.
  And you're the only one who's brought up Microsoft in any of this. Unless you're an astroturfing shill for Microsoft, why do you insist on bringing them into this at all? I repeat - you are the only person who has brought them up. Linux Foundation sure didn't.
  
  The ecosystem of Microsoft is in the trillions.
  Citation please?
  
  This number would work against Linux that way.
  If the only basis for comparison was some arbitrary cheerleading by an advocacy organization about the "value of the ecosystems", then yes, that number would work against Linux in a head-to-head comparison with Microsoft. Of course, that neglects the fact that there are other, far more useful bases for comparison, and that not every comparison where Linux is involved pits them against Microsoft. I've seen many comparisons between Linux and Solaris, or AIX, or HP-UX floating around my workplace, where Microsoft wasn't even a shadow of an afterthought.
  
  The only way you could sell it is by looking at the rates of expansion and trying to compare them.
  No, there's many other ways to sell Linux as a competitor to Microsoft or any other platform. Its price, its functionality, its security record, its Unix & POSIX underpinnings, its record of stability, its remarkable degree of choice & freedom. Any of those are perfectly valid reasons to ALSO choose to use Linux.
  
  What a "ecosystem is worth 25Bn dollars" statement does is it serves notice to companies that the Linux *ecosystem* is a place where there is a significant amount of money to be made in building your own services and applications. But you insist on bringing it back to Microsoft as if they're the only player that really matters in any discussion of platforms.
  
  I extrapolated that as the only feasible cause for their concern.
  Extrapolated? I think you mean "I engaged in wild-eyed speculation that that would be the only thing they could care about, and slapped some fancy latin on it to shore up an otherwise inadequate argument."
  
  There is no other viable reason, and you have not presented one yet.
  I have presented several possible benefits they could realize from publicizing this information, none of which have anything to do with Microsoft. Since we're both engaging in speculation as to the motives of the Linux Foundation, I'll reiterate my own wild-ass guesses for you. The Linux Foundation, as an advocacy group, is interested in publicizing the fact that the ecosystem of Linux & linux-based products & services is a substantial portion of the computing market where quite a bit of money can be made. This encourages companies to write new / port existing applications to Linux, encourages IT people to consider learning more about Linux, and in general makes the case for Linux stronger since it's not a case of a senior sysadmin pitching Linux to his managers and justifying it with, "Well me and 5 of my best friends use it at home, and it's the best." Claiming that the Linux ecosystem's value is "small compared to Microsoft" as a way of dismissing the valuation of Linux makes no sense: Apple has made a killing in the last decade by servicing a small but highly profitable segment of the computing market, why wouldn't Linux-oriented companies & support organizations be able to repeat that same sort of success?
  
  You're missing the simple fact that it's not a zero-sum game, and Microsoft, while large is not "the rest of the market except Linux." It's likely that Linux is stealing some market share from Microsoft, as well as some market share from IBM, HP, Sun, and probably other Unix vendors, as well as growing into some new markets where there really wasn't any competition from any of those players