The Linux Foundation has released its first ever report that attempts to measure the estimated value of development costs in its Collaborative Projects. According to the report, the total lines of source code present today in Linux Foundation’s Collaborative Projects are 115,013,302, and the estimated, total amount of effort required to retrace the steps of collaborative development for these projects is 41,192.25 person years. The report estimates that it would have taken 1,356 developers 30 years to recreate the code bases present in Linux Foundation’s current Collaborative Projects. The total economic value of this work is estimated to be over $5 billion.
The report is co-authored by Jeff Licquia, software engineer at The Linux Foundation; and Amanda McPherson, The Linux Foundation’s chief marketing officer. "When people have the tools and connections to collaborate on a massive scale, any problem can be solved," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director at Linux Foundation. "We believe only the Distributed Genius of thousands of people working as one can solve the most challenging problems of our time. Collaboration is today’s competitive advantage."
To download the full report, visit The Linux Foundation’s Publication’s website.