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Today, the Linux Foundation is releasing a report that shows just how valuable FOSS can be. The authors find that recreating Fedora 9.1 (the free distribution upon which Red Hat's current Linux release is based) using traditional proprietary methods would cost $10.8 billion. They also find that the cost of creating the Linux kernel alone would be $1.4 billion.
The question of how to measure the true value of free and open source software (FOSS), however, is difficult. Not only because, by definition, the software is free, but also because a popular distribution like Linux can incorporate the contributions of thousands of individuals working remotely from around the world. That means that there are is no developer time to account for, but almost no associated overhead costs as well. Indeed, even the question is a bit of a misnomer, because one measure of the value of FOSS is not the cost to build it, but rather the avoided cost of not having to do so at all.
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