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Fedora 9 Would Cost $10.8B To Build From Scratch
ruphus13 writes "The Linux Foundation's recently released report claims, '... it would take approximately $10.8 billion to build the Linux community distribution Fedora 9 in today's dollars with today's software development costs.' The article states why this might actually understate the value of the distros, though, since it doesn't include the power of the brand and the goodwill value. 'There were several approaches that the Linux Foundation employed to reach the $10.8 billion dollar figure, including calculating the number of lines of code in Fedora 9 (204,500,946), and using an average programmer's salary of $75,662.08 — as determined by the US Department of Labor — to measure development costs ... On the balance sheets of Coca Cola and many other huge corporations, you find goodwill listed as a major asset.'"
They can spend twice that much money and only deliver a tenth of the functionality! That's a win! I think.
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Sell the spice to CHOAM
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Goodwill only shows up on the balance sheet when an acquisition or some similar event occurs which creates a discrepancy between the purchase amount and the balance sheet of the acquisition.
You don't just make up a number and add it onto your balance sheet.
...is like paying airplane manufacturers by weight.
[...]to build the Linux community distribution Fedora 9 in today's dollars[...]
I'd rather build it in C with a modest compiler.
I wonder if I can spend some of my karma down at Taco Bell for a burrito?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
According to an Inquirer article, the estimates were about $10 billion.
I would think it would cost more than $10.8 billion to develop FC9 from scratch then...since it's a better OS.
Perhaps you should consider working on something other than an open source project :)
RTFA. It said $1.4b for the kernel alone.
I bet if you put the specs on eLance, there'd be a company in Romania somewhere bidding to do it for about $427.33, give or take a few dollars :)
You make $3.78/hr ?
Where I live people who make $75k have to live in an apartment, and it is unlikely they will be approved for a home loan without at least 30% down (around $150k). If you save aggressively on that sort of salary it should only take about 5-7 years to scrap together enough money for your down payment. Once you have the house, I'm not sure how you pay the mortgage (roughly $3k/month).
For you it will take closer to 70 years.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Thats not a fair comparisons of cost.
Especially since you are comparing lines of code in OSS to lines of code in CSS, Its like comparing 2 fruits, they are close, but not the same.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Fedora contains a lot of redundancy. throwing in several text editors makes sense if they're already there and free, but you wouldn't rewrite emacs, joe, Vim and nano. You wouldn't rewrite Epiphany, if you'd rewritten Firefox.
The number's a lot bigger than it needs to be.
"Goodwill" is a specific subset of "intangible assets". Other items such as patents, copyrights, trademarks or other contractually transferable rights or privileges would be in the same category, but are not "goodwill", which has a specific meaning in accounting.
I'm not in the military, so I'm speaking out of my ass here.
The last time I checked, you couldn't stop a suicide bomber by throwing a copy of Fedora 9 at them.
Uh, Goodwill is the correct term.
Has GP looked at GE's balance sheet?
GE claims $4.5 billion in "Licenses, Patents, and Trademarks". While the GP is correct that these values primarily arise as a function of acquisitions or sale of assets, the only time that corporate evaluations really matter is during acquisitions, sale of assets, and other forms of stock/ownership valuations.
Let me put it the way GE puts it (and GE is the *gold standard* when it comes to Goodwill, except for perhaps the Federal Reserve, who has a totally invented balance sheet.) There are 9 companies with triple A credit ratings, and GE's ability to manage accurately manage goodwill is one of the reasons it is a triple A rated company.
Upon closing an acquisition, we estimate the fair values of assets and liabilities acquired and consolidate the acquisition as quickly as possible. Given the time it takes to obtain pertinent information to finalize the acquired companyâ(TM)s balance sheet, then to adjust the acquired companyâ(TM)s accounting policies, procedures, books and records to our standards, it is often several quarters before we are able to finalize those initial fair value estimates. Accordingly, it is not uncommon for our initial estimates to be subsequently revised.
Emphasis added for the benefit of readers.
You *do* just stick those things on your balance sheet; the issue is being able to justify them. If I put my good name on a financial statement to a bank, the bank probably won't take me seriously, unless my name is something like "Warren Buffet". If my name is "GE", and I "give" that name to some business effort, it is a very serious transaction with serious financial consequences, and I can potentially use that to either buy or sell assets, as well as finance offers, and issue debt.
The credibility of the "good will", and the managers who evaluate the relevant values is what determines the financial values of those intangibles. They're only intangible in that they are intellectual concepts, and in many ways are just as "real" as stock or other corporate paper holdings.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Actually, I tried this last week, turns out he turned into a communist and dropped the religion thing. So, you, sir, are incorrect.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Going by this metric... how much did it cost to develop windows? How much did it actually cost?
As I wander around San Francisco, I see people living in some pretty squalid housing. I think to myself, "that's a 2 million dollar property? How? And how does that guy manage it?"
I get the impression that there might be affordable housing in San Francisco, though not the really desirable kind of housing that goes for $1000 per square foot.
I could be wrong, but then, the market still bears ridiculous pricing. It means you either need equity in the market, or it means that enough people have enough income to saturate the housing market.
I love the Bay Area, but there are only a few parts that I think I want to live in. I'm amused by the real estate in San Fran because I know of a time when some of the 10 million dollar victorians were considered "ghetto" and were difficult to sell at any price.
There are people who move to the Bay Area as an end in itself. I would move there if I could consider it a benefit of having a job or a business that earned enough that the expense of living there was not my most significant concern. On the other hand, I think my resumé allows me to say things like that to recruiters :-)
Meanwhile, I'll settle for an Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista and a Tikka Masala at India Curry House, and then leave the City for my relatively low cost of living home. The Bay Area doesn't want me so badly that it's willing to make it look cheap, so why in the hell would I move there? If the best I could do was $75K, I'm pretty sure I'd make a priority of getting out of there.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
In America, homeownership, like college, is a capitalist trap designed to force you into lifelong slavery. Fuck the house, own your life.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!