5 ms·

I always think of cURL [1] in these circumstances. The list of companies that uses his tool is amazing (but expected). Even BMW is there (of course) [2]. If you

I always think of cURL [1] in these circumstances. The list of companies that uses his tool is amazing (but expected). Even BMW is there (of course) [2]. If you had to valuate cURL I guess it would be worth much more than "top" (10 maybe?) tech companies (what a farce). It's pretty funny that people tried to steal his tool's name. He even has "testimonials" [3] which I guess is some form of dramatic irony. [1] https://curl.haxx.se https://curl.haxx.se [2] https://curl.haxx.se/docs/companies.html https://curl.haxx.se/docs/companies.html [3] https://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/theysay.html https://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/theysay.html

amelius 7y ago
Yes but a huge amount of companies use /bin/true either directly or indirectly. Following your logic it should be worth millions ... I think we should look at FOSS more as we regard math or science. Everybody uses it, but nobody pays for it (edit: once it exists).
- ISL 7y ago
  As a scientist, I am so very glad every day that someone pays for science. Without sustained support from NSF, DOE, and NIH, there is no way that fundamental research could move forward the way it has in the post-war United States. It is tricky to figure out how to allocate funds, but software underlies our nation's infrastructure, too. Having federal grants for the maintenance of core open-source infrastructure sure sounds like a cheap investment to me.
  - mikorym 7y ago
    And if you are not in the US, EU, or an Asian developed country, your stability of funding is pretty much at a level where you are taking an unnecessary and big risk by going into academia as a livelihood.
  - checktheorder 7y ago
    >Without sustained support from NSF, DOE, and NIH, there is no way that fundamental research could move forward the way it has in the post-war United States. One of my favourite scientists of all-time is Harrison Brown. He was most known for his role in launching George Tilton and Clair Patterson's dating-the-Earth project. But he had a most amazing ability to convince the cold-war era US government to fund civilian science that had no real military value whatsoever. He was a kind of science-funding Robin Hood, an ethical con artist.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    > the post-war United States. This might be a bit of a tangent, but the US is still at war and has been (in various stages of "hotness") for many decades). The war in Afghanistan will turn 18 in less than 2 months. More on-topic -- quite a bit of research still gets funding from the military, because of their massive budget (not that I think that this is an overall good thing -- I've heard really worrying stories about the sorts of discussions you have when doing military-funded research).
- mikorym 7y ago
  So, should it not be worth millions? Is calculus not worth millions?
  - amelius 7y ago
    If someone could claim exclusive rights: yes, it would be worth millions. However, we've chosen as a society to make IP law not apply to math and public science.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      This is an extremely shortsighted view, just because you can't sell calculus, doesn't mean its value in general isn't titanic. For instance, it underlies basically all modern science and technology, fundamentally.
      - amelius 7y ago
        The problem with putting a monetary value on something is always that someone either needs to buy it or sell it. Since calculus already exists and is in the public domain, nobody needs to buy it. No government needs to invest money in it. (Assuming that calculus is a finished work for the moment). This is, of course, not to say that calculus is not valuable.
        justizin 7y ago
        A fundamental tenet of Free Software is that math cannot be copyrighted and that software is basically just math. Whether you agree or disagree with that, it's kinda pointless to approach the topic from scratch in 2019, it's been argued into the ground for like 30 years.
      - pathseeker 7y ago
        The value you get from something has nothing to do with its price. When people say "X is worth Y dollars", "Y dollars" refers to what they can sell it for, not how much "value" its adding to society.
paulriddle 7y ago
A lot of companies might be using curl but in limited ways. For them there are plenty of alternatives because their requirements are small. They are choosing curl by default just because it's there and it works.
- dariusj18 7y ago
  Yeah, if I had to pay for curl based on this valuation (not to say that for a more reasonable valuation I wouldn't pay), I would just roll my own solution for my limited use case.
krupan 7y ago
Interesting project that is working on this problem: https://tidelift.com/ https://tidelift.com/

amelius 7y ago

Yes but a huge amount of companies use /bin/true either directly or indirectly. Following your logic it should be worth millions ... I think we should look at FOSS more as we regard math or science. Everybody uses it, but nobody pays for it (edit: once it exists).

ISL 7y ago
As a scientist, I am so very glad every day that someone pays for science. Without sustained support from NSF, DOE, and NIH, there is no way that fundamental research could move forward the way it has in the post-war United States. It is tricky to figure out how to allocate funds, but software underlies our nation's infrastructure, too. Having federal grants for the maintenance of core open-source infrastructure sure sounds like a cheap investment to me.
- mikorym 7y ago
  And if you are not in the US, EU, or an Asian developed country, your stability of funding is pretty much at a level where you are taking an unnecessary and big risk by going into academia as a livelihood.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  >Without sustained support from NSF, DOE, and NIH, there is no way that fundamental research could move forward the way it has in the post-war United States. One of my favourite scientists of all-time is Harrison Brown. He was most known for his role in launching George Tilton and Clair Patterson's dating-the-Earth project. But he had a most amazing ability to convince the cold-war era US government to fund civilian science that had no real military value whatsoever. He was a kind of science-funding Robin Hood, an ethical con artist.
- cyphar 7y ago
  > the post-war United States. This might be a bit of a tangent, but the US is still at war and has been (in various stages of "hotness") for many decades). The war in Afghanistan will turn 18 in less than 2 months. More on-topic -- quite a bit of research still gets funding from the military, because of their massive budget (not that I think that this is an overall good thing -- I've heard really worrying stories about the sorts of discussions you have when doing military-funded research).
mikorym 7y ago
So, should it not be worth millions? Is calculus not worth millions?
- amelius 7y ago
  If someone could claim exclusive rights: yes, it would be worth millions. However, we've chosen as a society to make IP law not apply to math and public science.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    This is an extremely shortsighted view, just because you can't sell calculus, doesn't mean its value in general isn't titanic. For instance, it underlies basically all modern science and technology, fundamentally.
    - amelius 7y ago
      The problem with putting a monetary value on something is always that someone either needs to buy it or sell it. Since calculus already exists and is in the public domain, nobody needs to buy it. No government needs to invest money in it. (Assuming that calculus is a finished work for the moment). This is, of course, not to say that calculus is not valuable.
      - justizin 7y ago
        A fundamental tenet of Free Software is that math cannot be copyrighted and that software is basically just math. Whether you agree or disagree with that, it's kinda pointless to approach the topic from scratch in 2019, it's been argued into the ground for like 30 years.
    - pathseeker 7y ago
      The value you get from something has nothing to do with its price. When people say "X is worth Y dollars", "Y dollars" refers to what they can sell it for, not how much "value" its adding to society.

paulriddle 7y ago

A lot of companies might be using curl but in limited ways. For them there are plenty of alternatives because their requirements are small. They are choosing curl by default just because it's there and it works.

dariusj18 7y ago
Yeah, if I had to pay for curl based on this valuation (not to say that for a more reasonable valuation I wouldn't pay), I would just roll my own solution for my limited use case.

krupan 7y ago

Interesting project that is working on this problem: https://tidelift.com/ https://tidelift.com/