page_title: Linux kernel
section_title: Estimated cost to redevelop
hierarchical_section_title: Linux kernel / Development / Estimated cost to redevelop
caption_attribution_description: English: Redevelopment costs of Linux kernel according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Estimated_cost_to_redevelop
context_page_description: The Linux kernel, developed by contributors worldwide, is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, Unix-like operating system kernel.
  It is deployed on a wide variety of computing systems, such as embedded devices, mobile devices, personal computers, servers, mainframes, and supercomputers.
  The Linux kernel was conceived and created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his personal computer and with no cross-platform intentions, but has since ported to a wide range of computer architectures. Notwithstanding this, the Linux kernel is highly optimized with the use of architecture specific instructions, therefore portability isn't as easy as it is with other kernels.
  Linux was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU Operating System, which was created as an open source and free software, and based on UNIX as a by-product of the fallout of the Unix wars. Since then, it has spawned a plethora of operating system distributions, commonly also called Linux, although, formally, the term "Linux" refers only to the kernel.
  Day-to-day development discussions take place on the Linux kernel mailing list.
context_section_description: The cost to redevelop the Linux kernel version 2.6.0 in a traditional proprietary development setting has been estimated to be US$612 million (€467M, £394M) in 2004 prices using the COCOMO man-month estimation model. In 2006, a study funded by the European Union put the redevelopment cost of kernel version 2.6.8 higher, at €882M ($1.14bn, £744M).
  This topic was revisited in October 2008 by Amanda McPherson, Brian Proffitt, and Ron Hale-Evans. Using David A. Wheeler's methodology, they estimated redevelopment of the 2.6.25 kernel now costs $1.3bn (part of a total $10.8bn to redevelop Fedora 9). Again, Garcia-Garcia and Alonso de Magdaleno from University of Oviedo (Spain) estimate that the value annually added to kernel was about €100M between 2005 and 2007 and €225M in 2008, it would cost also more than €1bn (about $1.4bn as of February 2010) to develop in the European Union.
  As of 7 March 2011, using then-current LOC (lines of code) of a 2.6.x Linux kernel and wage numbers with David A. Wheeler's calculations it would cost approximately $3bn (about €2.2bn) to redevelop the Linux kernel as it keeps getting bigger. An updated calculation as of 26 September 2018, using then-current 20,088,609 LOC (lines of code) for the 4.14.14 Linux kernel and the current US National average programmer salary of $75,506 show it would cost approximately $14,725,449,000 dollars (£11,191,341,000 pounds) to rewrite the existing code.
caption: Redevelopment costs of Linux kernel
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