Originally published in The New Stack Update.
Last week we estimated that development costs for the Kubernetes ecosystem were over $120 million. Many people saw this as a bargain, while others questioned the underlying methodology. For example, using lines of code is by general consensus a flawed metric. Multiple readers also asked about the scope of the projects under investigation and whether plugins and integrations should be counted. Although an MBA might not use these figures when estimating a valuation, these estimates are often more useful when justifying investment into NGOs and other “public goods”. How would you measure the costs of building your open source ecosystem?
