WHAT IS YOUR CODE WORTH? It is a difficult task to determine the value of software, especially if it isn’t complete and hasn’t been marketed to the public. There are several classic examples of companies undervaluing software they developed. Xerox Park gave away its graphical user interface inventions. Stanford let SUN Microsystem’s founders take the networking code, developed on their campus, at no charge. You can’t value software by the number of lines of code. It really depends on the problem it solves, how it’s marketed, and how many users it has. Maybe software really is worthless on it’s own and it only gains value when in use. I have a few projects that I’m developing up on Github. No one is using that software and it receives no attention. Is that software I have written worthless? I don’t know and I think only time will tell.