Posted 04/23/09 at 01:53:38 PM by David Murphy

Hello, Mr. Anderson.

At least, that's the greeting I now expect to see whenever I fire up a page on SourceForge.  And before you ask, no, the Wachowski brothers haven't bought the rights to the Web site.  The open source software world is huge--billions of dollars huge--but trying to figure out its breadth makes me think of The Matrix.  Or, at least, a construct of Matrix-like proportions.

Amazingly enough, a company called Black Duck Software has taken on the task of creating a complete and compelling picture of open source software development.  And I'm not just talking about a simple Linux survey or two. Black Duck has used everything from the largest of the open-source operating systems to the smallest of massively-multiplayer frameworks to develop an epic valuation of open-source software.  It's been running these numbers and scanning for projects since the company's founding in 2002, if that helps you to visualize just how deep the rabbit hole gets.

And what have they found?  Enough code, representing enough cash, to create a little Matrix of your very own.  Jack in, click the jump, and I'll tell you just how much that is.

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