Quoting Frank Brickle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on Fri 28 Dec 2007 07:57:42 PM PST:
> On Dec 28, 2007 10:14 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> $250K/yr radio development engineers? What radio industry do you work in >> and where do I sign-on? > > > Dan -- > > Most of these numbers reflect the Martian world of huge govvie contractors, > locked-up IP, and executing dollars. They're staggering under their own > inertia and dead weight as it is. It's illuminating to realize that software > development methodologies are all about cost accounting. They have nothing > to do with software. Nonsense on many fronts. 10 holidays yr + 15 days vacation/yr = 25 days. Out of 260 nominal days/yr (52 wks), that's about 10% right there. Payroll and other taxes add about 10-15% (depending on the state, etc.) Rent/heat/lights is probably around $20-25/square foot/year and for a 100 square foot cubicle, that's $2000-2500/yr, but, of course, you probably also need lab space, so double or triple that. $300/month for desktop computer (lease + support+network infrastructure) Health insurance, etc. also adds up. Then you get into the overheads. 10-20% of the employee's time is on non-task-productive work (seminars, institutionally required training, etc.) (e.g. a lot of companies allow 40hrs/yr for training.. that's 2% right there) 10-20% for administrative support (secretary, copying, etc.) 10-20% for line management (G&A) 10-20% for profit And, then, I assume you need to invest in some equipment periodically, etc. It all adds up. I'll bet you'll find if you look at most surveys or company balance sheets, a senior engineer, sitting at a desk, with all the mod cons, will be pretty close to $200-250K/yr, depending on the location. Interestingly, I just read a paper looking at the equivalent development cost for Linux (full up RH7 distro with all the add-ons) and he came up with a gigabuck. His data showed a "wrap rate" (fully burdened multiplier) of 2.4 over raw salary cost (which is comparable to my number above). FWIW, a very, very tiny fraction of the cost is in closed source IP. Most of it is just having a warm body sitting there doing useful work on *your* task. I'd also differ with you about software methodologies and cost accounting, at least as a starting point. It's true that there IS a fair amount of interest in measuring progress against funds expended, but that's true of ALL industries, if they want to stay in business. Most businesses don't have the luxury of being able to arbitrarily slip delivery dates, have unlimited development funds, etc., and so, they need to be able to have some way to know if they're making progress, and what it's going to cost, so they can make those investment decisions (make vs buy, if nothing else). No surprise then that businesses want to be able to cast software development into a conceptual framework that can be related to other investments the company might make. I agree that a lot of the software development methodology 'science' is aimed at making it possible for people who know nothing about software development to manage it (a hopeless task, in my opinion), but there is value in some of the fallout of that desire. It's also interesting to note that the vast majority (80% plus, according to an interview in 2004 with Andrew Morton) of the kernel changes to Linux were made by someone being *paid* to make them.(that is, it wasn't the work of unpaid volunteers) Clearly, whoever is doing the paying has made some decision that the value of contributing to the code base is worth some substantial non-zero investment of cash. > > If you have a chance to read or hear any of what Bruce Perens has to say > about shared infrastructure and Open Source vs. differentiating technology, > jump at the opportunity. He's really funny and eye-opening. > > 73 > Frank > AB2KT > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/pipermail/flexradio_flex-radio.biz/attachments/20071228/1030b136/attachment.html > _______________________________________________ > FlexRadio mailing list > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz > Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ > FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ > FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ > > _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
