The Billion Dollar Kernel 289
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."
One BILLIOIN DOLLARS (Score:4, Funny)
/pinky to mouth ....
Re:One BILLIOIN DOLLARS (Score:5, Funny)
"Frikkin' kernals with frikkin' lazer beams in their frikkin' code!"
-The truth behind Linux's security
It could have been the 1000 Dollar Kernel... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm not sure COCOMO is a good measure (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say every "Kernel line of code" is probably worth 10 lines of code in userspace, if not more.
Why? Because you think there's some fundamental difference between low level and high level code?
Papayas don't need to be ripe to be useful. Green papayas can be pickled and be just as tasty as sweet ripe ones. The only differentiation is the time of picking.
Why would you give bonus points to the early pickers just because you don't understand the pickling process?
Re:I'm not sure COCOMO is a good measure (Score:5, Funny)
Papayas don't need to be ripe to be useful. Green papayas can be pickled and be just as tasty as sweet ripe ones. The only differentiation is the time of picking.
What in the fuck are you talking about.
Re:I'm not sure COCOMO is a good measure (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, you're clearly a user-space developer.
I wish I had some shiny pieces of glass to distract you.
Re:Oops... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:American perspective? (Score:3, Funny)
Now who gets the last laugh!
Re:Seems a bit high (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Seems a bit high (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they estimated Chuck Norris would do the coding.
Re:American perspective? (Score:4, Funny)
Now who gets the last laugh!
The other mods who modded you Troll?
Original Unix License was One BILLION DOLLARS (Score:4, Funny)
Back in the mumblety-80s, standard Bell Labs* Unix licenses came in binary and source versions. Binaries were cheap, source more expensive, universities got discounts so it was nearly free to them. At one point the US Government wanted a license that would give them unlimited rights to the code, because that was what they got for software that they'd paid to have develop, and their contracting bureaucrats insisted strenuously that they wanted that option for Unix as well. The Bell Labs Obnoxious Licensing Lawyers thought about it for a while, decided ok, and gave them a price - One Billion Dollars. The government bureaucrats said "ok, thanks", checked the box on their forms saying it was available, didn't actually order it :-)
* Actually, depending on the year, it might have been Bell Labs, or Western Electric, or various parts of AT the bureaucracy you ordered Unix from changed over the years.