SPUG: CPAN code worth $500M

David Innes (CSG) davidinnes at chicagoscience.com
Mon Aug 9 14:39:28 CDT 2004


Michael (if I'm reading the interpolations correctly) said:
I think I'm working for the wrong company...  I'm making neither $100k nor
($677m/5012) = $135,075.82!

I say:
I think the disconnect comes with the assumption that software value is
based exclusively on direct programmer compensation.  

If you assume only industry-average compensation plus industry-averaged
fully-amortized office infrastructure costs you'd be looking at $100-125K
per year per programmer.  You'd see the average programmer actually taking
home maybe a third of that.

So, unfortunately for us, the numbers look about right so at least as far as
average compensation goes (also unfortunately) we're not working for the
wrong companies.  Sigh.

		-- David Innes

---

On a different note I have to challenge the topic title.  Michael Stevens
calculated the theoretical *cost* of producing CPAN, not its actual worth. 

Just looking at DBI/DBD::Oracle you could be talking tens or hundreds of
millions a year considering how much industry pays each year to maintain and
operate that one application.  CPAN in aggregate is certainly *worth* more
than $500M.

		-- David Innes

-----Original Message-----
From: spug-list-bounces at mail.pm.org [mailto:spug-list-bounces at mail.pm.org]
On Behalf Of Daniel James
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2004 5:33 PM
To: spug-list at mail.pm.org
Subject: Re: SPUG: CPAN code worth $500M

Michael R. Wolf wrote:


	>     $100K/yr/programmer * 5,000 programmer-yrs == $500,000,000 
	
	Not too far off....  The actual "study"
(http://www.etla.org/stdout/code/cpan_sloccount.html) quotes: 
	
	    5,012 programmer-years 
	    $677M 
	

I think I'm working for the wrong company...  I'm making neither $100k nor
($677m/5012) = $135,075.82!

If anyone knows of any openings with either of these salaries, I'm presently
updating my resume and would love to hear from you! ;-) 





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