WikiSuite | Constructive Cost Model COCOMO

As of 2019, WikiSuite's cost to develop is between 50 and 100 million $USD.

Really?

Yes. If you tried to re-code WikiSuite using proprietary models. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COCOMO

How can it be free and who paid for this?

Like Wikipedia, GNU/Linux and Firefox, WikiSuite is the result of massive collaboration.

How do you arrive to 50-100 million $USD? Are you including the cost of GNU/Linux?

Nope. Just the Linux Kernel would cost billions to redevelop

The WikiSuite-specific code (mostly ClearOS installers):
0.2 M: https://www.openhub.net/p/wikisuite/estimated_cost
This is intentionally as small as possible since we focus on upstreaming code to the various Software Components

The main software components:

Isn't the figure exaggerated?

In some cases, it's actually underestimated. COCOMO counts the number of lines of code. But a project like Tiki has been in active development for over 16 years, and there has been over 68 000 code commits. This battle-tested code costs more to develop than an application that would have the same number of lines, but would cost less to develop.

The Tiki-specific code is at approximately $15M. But that doesn't even count the 125 external dependencies. Think about it. Each dependency represents a distinct community / code base / bug tracker / etc.

Ok, but I am not going to use all the features

That is true of all feature-rich software. But the economics don't make it feasible to build software just for your needs. Community Free / Libre / Open Source software will necessarily want to cater to a wider community and get more users and contributors.

Information	Version
2019-05-07 11:15 Marc Laporte	64	View
2019-05-01 10:24 Marc Laporte Fixed	63	View
2019-04-23 11:26 Marc Laporte Add a section: But adding up these figures is way more than $50 million (a fair question)	62	View
2019-04-23 08:48 Marc Laporte Changing because it's currently broken	61	View
2019-04-22 03:30 M. Bilal Siddiq	60	View
2019-04-22 03:30 M. Bilal Siddiq	59	View
2019-04-10 09:19 Marc Laporte	58	View
2019-04-05 18:15 Marc Laporte	57	View
2019-02-13 20:21 Marc Laporte Thanks luci!	56	View
2019-02-07 09:18 gary.cunningham-lee Fixed an error I introduced; changed large-figure format (to use comma).	55	View
2019-02-07 09:02 gary.cunningham-lee Some edits for general readability, etc.	54	View
2019-02-06 20:24 Marc Laporte	53	View
2019-02-04 20:39 Marc Laporte	52	View
2019-02-04 20:36 Marc Laporte	51	View
2019-02-04 20:35 Marc Laporte	50	View
2019-02-04 20:34 Marc Laporte	49	View
2019-02-04 20:33 Marc Laporte	48	View
2019-02-04 20:31 Marc Laporte	47	View
2019-02-04 20:30 Marc Laporte	46	View
2019-02-04 20:29 Marc Laporte	45	View
2019-02-04 20:28 Marc Laporte	44	View
2019-02-04 20:25 Marc Laporte	43	View
2019-02-04 20:20 Marc Laporte	42	View
2019-02-04 20:19 Marc Laporte	41	View
2019-02-04 20:11 Marc Laporte	40	View
2019-02-04 20:11 Marc Laporte Links are above	39	View
2019-02-04 20:06 Marc Laporte	38	View
2019-02-04 20:04 Marc Laporte	37	View
2019-02-04 20:02 Marc Laporte	36	View
2019-02-04 19:56 Marc Laporte	35	View
2019-02-04 19:36 Marc Laporte	34	View
2019-02-04 19:34 Marc Laporte	33	View
2019-02-04 17:17 Marc Laporte Addressing reasonable questions	32	View
2019-02-04 10:45 Marc Laporte	31	View
2019-02-04 02:34 Marc Laporte	30	View
2019-02-04 02:31 Marc Laporte	29	View
2019-02-04 02:30 Marc Laporte	28	View
2019-02-04 02:29 Marc Laporte	27	View
2019-02-04 02:23 Marc Laporte	26	View
2019-02-04 02:19 Marc Laporte	25	View
2019-02-04 02:15 Marc Laporte	24	View
2019-02-04 02:13 Marc Laporte	23	View
2019-02-04 02:12 Marc Laporte	22	View
2019-02-04 02:10 Marc Laporte	21	View
2019-02-04 02:06 Marc Laporte	20	View
2019-02-04 02:00 Marc Laporte	19	View
2019-02-04 01:40 Marc Laporte	18	View
2019-02-04 01:31 Marc Laporte	17	View
2019-01-30 20:38 Marc Laporte	16	View
2019-01-30 14:12 Marc Laporte	15	View

History: Constructive Cost Model COCOMO

Preview of version: 19

Really?

How can it be free and who paid for this?

How do you arrive to 50-100 million $USD? Are you including the cost of GNU/Linux?

The main software components:

Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware

Openfire

ClearOS

Syncthing

Elasticsearch

Isn't the figure exaggerated?

Ok, but I am not going to use all the features

Related links

History