Open-source software has an economic value of 8.8 trillion US dollars. Without open-source programs, companies would have to spend around 3.5 times more money on software. This is according to a study by Harvard Business School. Around 95 percent of this figure is attributable to 3,000 developers worldwide. In addition, open-source software is included in 96 percent of all codebases. Open-source development costs over four billion US dollars Because open-source applications are mostly free of ch...