David A. Wheeler: New Report Sizes Up Linux | Linux Today

David A. Wheeler: New Report Sizes Up Linux

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Nov 2, 2000

[ Thanks to David A.
Wheeler
for this report: ]

I’ve just released a report on the size of Red Hat Linux
version 6.2’s source code. Interesting results include the
following:

  1. This Linux distribution includes well over 17 million physical
    source lines of code (SLOC).
  2. Over 4,500 person-years of development time would have been
    required to build this distribution by conventional proprietary
    means.
  3. It would have cost over $600 million (in year 2000 dollars) to
    develop this distribution in the U.S. using conventional
    proprietary means.

The largest components (in order) were the linux kernel, the
X-windows server, egcs, and emacs. The languages with the most
lines of code were (in order): C, C++, LISP, shell, and perl; many
other languages were also represented.

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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