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Thread: BOINC - A new model for volunteer computing = You Won't believe this

  1. #1
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    BOINC - A new model for volunteer computing = You Won't believe this

    The website link is here.

    What this accounts for is CHANGE, yes they want to change how BOINC operates. Why can't they leave something that works, alone?





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  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nflight View Post
    The website link is here.

    What this accounts for is CHANGE, yes they want to change how BOINC operates. Why can't they leave something that works, alone?
    It looks like you have a difference of opinion with David Anderson about "something that works".
    He has some valid points though:

    The model didn't work as envisioned, for a number of reasons:

    • Creating and operating a VC project is harder than we realized: it requires a combination of resource and skills (Win/Mac programming, sysadmin, DB admin, web design, PR/outreach) that few academic research groups have.
    • For a research group, trying to use VC is a risk. There's a substantial investment, with no guarantee of any return, since no one may volunteer. Adding a VC component to a grant proposal adds uncertainty and weakens the proposal.
    • The computing needs of many research groups are sporadic - e.g. they need a big chunk of throughput every now and then. For such groups, buying computing time on a commercial cloud may be cheaper than using VC.
    • Attracting volunteers is a marketing exercise. It's difficult to do effective marketing when there are dozens of competing brands (i.e. projects names).
    • Most volunteers aren't interested willing to survey and assess a large set of projects once, much less repeatedly.
    • We made little effort to interface, technically or politically, with the mainstream HPC/HTC world (Grid, Supercomputing, Condor, etc.). They came to view VC in negative ways: as a threat, a gimmick, etc. Around 2006 there was a brief and small interest in VC in academic computer world. Since then, nothing: no conferences on distributed computing list VC as a topic of interest. This has been damaging to VC; e.g. no one is working on solving the hard problems that arise in VC (such as how to grant credit).


  3. #3
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    This may well be good for the fire and forget crowd but this bit worries me;

    TBD will act as an allocator of computing power. This will be based in part on user preferences, but there will of necessity also be a higher-level allocation policy, decided on by an organization.
    It sounds to me that some organization has ultimate control on what project and when that project will be run on your systems irregardless of your choices.

    It will also provide a basis for corporate partnerships
    This is a non-starter for me. If I'm providing my time, money and computing power for free I expect the information and results to be freely available to all.

  4. #4
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    I agree. once its going to corporations for profit I want nothing to do with it. We invest our money with the expectation the results are public for the good of humanity. The idea it will be for the good of corporations sounds like we should be able to make a profit as well. I am not sure what kind of people will want to spend money on electricity to help others make profit. I am curious how much control the user will have and how well it plays out.



  5. #5
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    There have been projects that went commercial before, and there is a project that -to me- is commercial right now (Gridcoin)
    Fact is that there are fewer and fewer projects as years go by. But I agree that ultimately it ought to my my choice what runs on my system though.
    Last edited by Dirk Broer; 08-13-2017 at 06:06 PM.


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    They say that the current system doesn't work. They have not spoken to GPUGrid as these folks believe in the system, and have accomplished some amazing goals they set forth with proper programming. Then there is World Community Grid did they not succeed in producing quantifiable data that is very good for what has been completed by volunteers. Yes I am worried that my volunteer effort with be ochestrrated by someone else. When I read this I just wanted everyone to know what is being stated in the background. This link was placed there in June 2017, its been two months and we have not heard much about this till I placed it here.

    I hope to hear from other members of this Team and friends who pop in here once in awhile.
    Last edited by Nflight; 08-14-2017 at 12:34 PM. Reason: spelling- much more spelling





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    I'll stop DC'ing if I cannot control which projects run on my computers. My power bill is extremely high and I spend it where I want to.

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    Quote Originally Posted by vaughan View Post
    I'll stop DC'ing if I cannot control which projects run on my computers. My power bill is extremely high and I spend it where I want to.
    You won't have to stop DCÃ*ng. There's plenty of projects that do not need BOINC and/or David Anderson...


  9. #9
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    I hope this TBD thing will run alongside BOINC and not instead of. I like to be in control and am always fiddling with cpu allocation, project details, etc., to micro-manage my BOINC tasks. If that control is taken away, I won't run it any more. He is however correct, in that I'm an old IT savvy male, lol ;-)

  10. #10
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    Tricky one this one.
    From most project perspectives the majority of participants are short-term and not so tech savvy (esp. where publicity has been involved)
    So generalising the allocation of resources reduces non-productive time and gets the most from those available resources during the time they are available.
    For the rest of us, including the "Mega Crunchers", (in the words of Bart Simpson) "this both sucks and blows"
    If it is not optional like BAM then I predict a hefty exodus.
    Since so many of us dedicated participants tailor resource allocations to a project, losing the ability to do so puts our decade-plus commitments at an end.
    It sounds like an idea with potential but with a really shitty execution plan.
    In the long run, junking the dedicated competitive crunchers from the pool will push the onus onto the projects to publicise their projects in ever more catchy and crazy ways (not like science at all!)
    which only adds to all of the things it takes to do for a DC project admin instead of reducing them.
    This will not end well.

    EDIT - I could have said "I agree with KarmannGaz" but for some reason I had to use a lot more words to arrive at the same conclusion :P
    Last edited by AMDave; 08-18-2017 at 12:09 PM.
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