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@juanan@infosec.exchangeResearchers at Harvard Business School and University of Toronto used unique data to quantify the value of open source.
Takeways:
* Supply-side (cost to recreate) is ~$4.15B, but demand-side (value to firms) is $8.8T. Shows massive cost savings & productivity boost from OSS.
* If OSS didn't exist, firms would need to spend an estimated 3.5 times more on software than they currently do. OSS provides a massive, often invisible, productivity boost.
* A tiny fraction of OSS developers create the vast majority of value. Only 5% of developers are responsible for over 96% of the demand-side value
* Firms should not just "free ride" on OSS but actively contribute to the ecosystem, as this is far cheaper than recreating the software themselves.
Source:
https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/24-038_51f8444f-502c-4139-8bf2-56eb4b65c58a.pdf
@juanan @vaurora I haven’t read the details on how they calculated the value side, but having watched how software projects are managed, I have to wonder if that 8.8T accounts for how bad companies are about writing and maintaining and the number of failed projects that will inevitably consume budgets
@juanan apparently you need to go to Harvard business school in order to know the BLATENTLY FUCKING OBVIOUS.
@jargoggles @spyro @juanan I'm trying to figure how to work in a #constructiveMathematics joke. Something about whether "this is taught at Harvard business school" is a decidable proposition.
If someone found a way to make many loaves and fishes from one loaf and one fish for $0 extra, the multiplier would be infinite.
Closed source locks up this genie in the name of artificial scarcity, and we all pay more.
@juanan is it true that most of those contributions are done during work time, by employers giving some “free time” to the contributors to progress on OSS projects?
@stux@mstdn.social@juanan agreed!
@kkarhan@infosec.space@juanan also dupportibg #FLOSS with recurribg donations is cheaper than #licensing #CCSS that does the same job!
@kkarhan@infosec.space@GhostOnTheHalfShell @juanan IMHO we should long-term transition to a society that just enshures everyone.can do their best...
Wait, you’re telling the world that private competitive wars over products and service services is not the most cost-effective way to do things?
Who would’ve thought?
@juanan But why is the ecosystem - in fact a working system - 'far cheaper'? Quote: Firms should not just "free ride" on OSS but actively contribute to the ecosystem, as this is far cheaper than recreating the software themselves. Quot End #OpenSource #FreeBeer ?
@juanan to extend on this. Without open source, all those AI coding assistants wouldn't even exist.
Greedy companies like OpenAI just scanned the whole repositories to train their models
@juanan Copyleft licenses can prevent Free Software from being stolen. Every developer should think carefully about whether he really wants to support BSD or MIT licenses. My recommendation is “GPL-v3 or any later”. Furthermore; you are not paying for the product in fact for the developer.
Copyleftlizenzen können verhindern das Freie Software gestohlen wird. Jeder Entwickler sollte sich gut überlegen ob er wirklich BSD, oder MIT Lizenzen unterstützen will. Meine Empfehlung "GPL-v3 or later".
@juanan ""Firms should not just "free ride" on OSS but actively contribute to the ecosystem, as this is far cheaper than recreating the software themselves."" Still far cheaper to assume someone else will contribute in your stead. 
@juanan
> I need some software to make a pdf, showcasing the value of open source software, with lots of references and formulae.
"So you're using LaT..."
> YES, Quartz by the Apple corporation, the natural choice for discussing open source projects.
@juanan This is a very remarkable paper! I translated it into shortened German version so that everyone in "my" community can take note of it.
Forscher der Harvard Business School und der Universität von Toronto haben den Wert von Open Source Software (OSS) quantifiziert:
Die Studie zeigt enorme Kosteneinsparungen und Produktivitätssteigerungen durch OSS.
Gäbe es OSS nicht, müssten Unternehmen ca. 3.5 Mal mehr für Software ausgeben.
Unternehmen sollten sich nicht auf OSS "ausruhen", sondern aktiv zum Ökosystem beitragen, da dies weitaus günstiger ist, als die Software selbst neu zu erstellen. (Übersetzt und gekürzt durch mich).
@juanan Very good news - but the healthcare sector laaaaags behind...
Corporations: "We need to monetize this!"
@juanan yeah not quite. They assert that "In a world where OSS did not exist at all, then each piece of OSS software would not need to be rewritten just once, but instead would need to be rewritten by every firm that used the software" which is obviously false, because software can be copied and distributed at very low marginal cost.
You could write the software once (say, Microsoft Windows) and then sell it to a lot of firms.
A fact they know about, because they mention it a couple of sentences later.
@daedalus sure not all software would be recreated by all firms, commercial operating systems, programming languages and libraries would exist, but an enormous amount of small software projects would be recreating the same basic apps and frameworks over and over inside each company because each would be too small to justify an entire 3rdparty shrinkwrap product. What you'd probably find is that big consulting and outsourcing firms can create efficiency by sharing code across customers that would make them competitive with inhouse teams. There would be a lot more IBM and others maintaining whole inhouse technology stacks like there was in the 60s and 70s.
@juanan
The estimate of one to six billion USD to recreate all widely used OSS seems absurdly low, they must be off by orders of magnitude there.
Thank you @juanan . @EUCommission these are the cost savings the government could be making by using #opensource instead of #proprietary stuff like #microsoft #apple #google and #amazon. #PublicMoneyPublicCode
@juanan
@afreytes This. This is why I've always advocated for open source software, and why it's important for anyone working at a firm that uses it to constantly push management to open source as much as they can, and contribute back to the community. Contributing back will benefit everyone, including the company doing it.
@SenseException@phpc.social@juanan Yet, there will always be a dev who will take over once another one is gone. So no need to stop a free ride.
@juanan but did they account for all the nights we wasted having to reverse engineer all the proprietary crap we wanted to interoperate with?
@Ember@blobfox.coffee@juanan aka it's so valuable because companies are leeching 8 trillion dollars of unpaid labor off of it
@stevendbrewer@wandering.shop@juanan Adapted from xkcd "Dependency" https://xkcd.com/2347/
@juanan @securingdev And just imagine if value wasn’t just measured in dollars for some people. I know, I know… crazy talk!