Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Billion Dollar Kernel

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the that's-a-lotta-dough dept.

jesgar writes "The Linux kernel would cost more than one billion EUR (about 1.4 billion USD) to develop in the European Union. This is the estimate made by researchers from the University of Oviedo (PPT), whereby the value annually added to this product was about 100 million EUR between 2005 and 2007 and 225 million EUR in 2008. The estimated 2008 result is comparable to 4% and 12% of Microsoft's and Google's R&D expenses on whole company products. Cost model 'Intermediate COCOMO81' is used according to parametric estimations by David Wheeler. An average annual base salary for a developer of 31,040 EUR was estimated from the EUROSTAT. Previously, similar works had been done by several authors estimating Red Hat, Debian, and Fedora distributions. The cost estimation is not of itself important, but it is an important means to an end: that commons-based innovation must receive a higher level of official recognition that would set it as an alternative to decision-makers. Ideally, legal and regulatory frameworks must allow companies participating on commons-based R&D to generate intangible assets for their contribution to successful projects. Otherwise, expenses must have an equitable tax treatment as a donation to social welfare."

3 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Seems a bit high by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Given a dozen developers and a hard spec, Linux could be developed in 8 to 9 months.

    Now, the beauty of OSS is that are no hard specs, so that could indefinitely extend the development time, I suppose.

    But to say that the OS couldn't be developed for under a million bucks is pretty fucking stupid. Maybe if they got their tongues off of Linus's dick for a minute or two they could refer to actual development schedules rather than make-believe schedules based on projects done by idiot students.

    1. Re:Seems a bit high by Lumpy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      His only reference is the Windows OS code. and that is banged out by a room full of monkeys... the typically deliver a line of code every 4 seconds. And from the quality of the product, It's spider monkeys.

      Adobe products are written by Golden Snub Nose Monkeys.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Re:American perspective? by TheKidWho · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What you call brainwashing, I call logic.