Re: looks like it's happening everywhere but the US.

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Carlo Daffara wrote:

> My estimates (based on total economic value) place 2001 percentages of
> boxed versus custom/inhouse software at 20% up to 24% maximum.

  I'm very curious how "total economic value" of software is measured?

  Distributed software (whether boxed or not) has a sale-value that can be
measured in a variety of ways (whether by royalties or other methods of
payment), but in-house software really only has use-value.  How does one
come up with a comparison of sale-value of one type of software and to
use-value of a very different type of software?

  I also find it hard to even compare sale-value across methodologies
given that non-FLOSS tends to have a sale-price that is higher than
comparable FLOSS, but that in no way should be used to suggest that the
non-FLOSS has a greater value.  Even for distributed software there is no
obvious relationship between sale-value and use-value when comparing
different methodologies of production.

  This question reminds me of the questions I have had about other
measurements such as the United Nations Development Program's "Technology
Achievement Index" which includes patents granted, royalty fees and
electricity consumption. This measurement doesn't differentiate increases
in poor quality and questionable types of patents, alternative technology
business models (such as peer production that doesn't rely on or is
incompatible with royalty payments), or use of energy inefficient
electronic devices.
  http://www.flora.ca/oclug2002/img12.html


  Is there an objective measurement of software value that allows for
comparisons of these quite different types of software to come up with
such percentages?  If so then I am very interested to read about this.

  Lines of code (quantity, not quality) is I believe what the 95%/5%
figure comes from which doesn't try to suggest a value comparison between
very different types of software.

> In any case, reducing even by 1% the software development cost through
> reuse of FLOSS code can have a huge economic impact. (for some ideas, see
> http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/workshop/papers/daffara.htm )

  I see there is a slide-show for this as well.  Thanks for this reference.

http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/workshop/papers.htm

> cheers
> Carlo Daffara
---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
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