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How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year? (feddit.org)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/programming@programming.dev

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How many lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

Based on estimates of the value of the Linux kernel (around 2200 Million Euros in 2011), the size of the kernel (in 2011, version 2.6 was current, with a bit less than 20 million lines of code), and average salary of kernel developers (for Germany, one could estimate 60,000 - 80,000 EUR/year for a mid to senior embedded developer, you can go to kununu.de and look for salary statistics for larger companies like Siemens as a reference), one can estimate the lines of new code that a full-time kernel developer produces - less than 1000 lines per year:

 value=2200000000
 cost_man_year = 60000
 lines_of_code= 20000000

 person_years = value / cost_man_year
lines_per_person_per_year = lines_of_code / person_years

I get to 545 lines per person-year that way.

The interesting question is: You can obviously type that in in half an hour. What do these software developers actually do all day? ;->

Edit: Some people might get it wrong and overlook the 😉 emoticon: I absolutely don't think you should or can measure the productivity or competence of a software developer by counting the lines he or she produces! Myself, I just fixed a bug after searching one whole week for it by uncommenting a single line ... in a two year old unfinished port of a software written 15 years ago to implement and port a niche industrial protocol created 18 years ago.

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[–] ludrol@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You are mixing up the units here. Value is not a real money, and you can't pay salaries with value. You can pay salaries with cash.
To actually get how many LOC in a kernel per person per year they produce. You need to look at git history, and do data science on it. It's doable and easy but not really my area of expertise.
You need to account for that vast majority of contributors make just one patch and they are never heard from again. They don't work full time, or even part time on the kernel.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 2 points 21 hours ago

See the linked Wikipedia article. The value is defined as the estimated hypothetical costs to re-create it, and these costs would be salaries. There exist estimation models for the value of large Software systems, which are e.g. used in company takeovers and mergers. And of course, that's hypothetical, the Linux kernel is not for sale.