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Posts by Nicolas

1) Message boards : Application Code Discussion : milkyway released under GPLv3 (Message 14838)
Posted 10 Mar 2009 by Nicolas
Post:
Talking about copyright, ist this GPL?

numericalIntegration.c:
/*Gauss-Legendre quadrature taken from Numerical Recipes in C*/

Open the file yourself; does it say "you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation" and does it include the full text of the GPL somewhere in the program distribution? If it does, then it's GPL.

If it doesn't, does it say in some other way what exactly you can do with the code?

If it doesn't, then you aren't allowed to do anything with it.

EDIT: the software in Numerical Recipes "cannot be freely redistributed in modified (or unmodified) version — it is issued under a non-free licence". It's incompatible with the GPL. GPL code (like MW app) cannot use code from that book.
2) Message boards : Application Code Discussion : milkyway released under GPLv3 (Message 14816)
Posted 10 Mar 2009 by Nicolas
Post:
This is what happens when alpha test applications are tested via public community vs. private.
Almost always, someone wants the source & questions/challenges come-up re: GPL.
With developmental alphas, there's risk to distributing code that may not be 100% sorted that could end-up in mass public distributed binaries compiled by someone else.
A developer's interest & motivation for controlling the source of a alpha dev. app is valid.
Question is whether it's legal.

Legal considerations aside, it seems poor form to request alpha dev. source from a developer while they are actively developing the application. Comes across as rather rude ; > )


If he was modifying GPL code, he would have the right to keep everything to himself. But as soon as he releases binaries, he MUST release source code, at least on request. It's not about good or poor form, it'd be a legal requirement. If "distributing alpha code is a risk", and you don't want to do it, you can't release binaries either.

However, he didn't modify GPL code. He modified old code which had no license at all, in which case he didn't even have permission to modify it, not even for personal use. "All rights reserved". Unless the copyright holder (Travis; although the code lacks clear copyright notices as well) gives him explicit permission.

Of course, the only one with a clear right to complain (or file suit :P) is Travis, and he obviously won't do that, since he (now) agrees with the work being done, which I guess counts as having given permission to Physik to do what he's doing.
3) Message boards : Application Code Discussion : milkyway released under GPLv3 (Message 14585)
Posted 9 Mar 2009 by Nicolas
Post:
Where can I get the SourceCode for the Stream capable client ?
I'm interested in porting it to linux.

Nowhere.

The whole thing is work in progress and I will share the code with Travis when it's finished. The readme supplied with the GPU app states my view on this topic.

Exactly what version did you use as a base? One I found (0.7) had no license notice at all. Just in case you used that one or a similar once: code with no license doesn't automatically give you infinite rights over it.

irc.freenode.net, #fsf:

<PovAddict> someone released the code of a program he was writing, without any license notice
<PovAddict> just a few files had a copyright and "All rights reserved" (just because the IDE added it by default)
<ams> you can't do squat with it, sorry.
<PovAddict> later versions added all the needed stuff for GPL (header comment in all files, COPYING file, etc)
<ianweller> what ams said
<PovAddict> someone else took the old version without license information, made major modifications to it, and posted binaries, and refuses to give the source code
<ianweller> oic. :P
<ams> PovAddict: well, they are violating copyright law then.
<ams> default copyrignt law does not give anyone other than the copyright holder permission to modify, or disribute deriviate works
<ianweller> (if they took the new version w/ the GPL then they'd be violating the GPL from how i understand it)
<ams> yep
<PovAddict> he claims to have taken a version from before it was GPL, a friend searched a bit and found that "before GPL" it had absolutely no license information
<ams> right, then there is no license, and the person is distributing the program illegally.
4) Message boards : Number crunching : post milkyway_windows_intelx86 problems here (Message 7511)
Posted 6 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
What I wonder, though, is: how did get to be so absurdly high? And on my work box and home box both, even though they're rather different setups? (dual x86/Win vs. dual x64/Linux)

If milkyway estimates are off, the DCF tries to compensate, and may get too high/low. If the project then fixes its estimates (or gets them wrong in the other direction!), you will get completely wrong estimates until the DCF manages to compensate it again :)
5) Message boards : Number crunching : credit comparison to other projects (Message 7453)
Posted 4 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
And what size does it have to be to be called "big"?


Size doesn't matter...

But optimized does matter.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : credit comparison to other projects (Message 7440)
Posted 4 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
Stock client credit output should be compared to stock client, and optimised to optimised. No shout of "unfair" should be given credence if comparing optimised client to a stock client, even though for MW the optimised client is the stock client.

"optimized" is not a yes/no question. You're saying we can't compare big apples to small watermelons, we have to compare big to big and small to small. But they're still different fruit. And what size does it have to be to be called "big"?
7) Message boards : Number crunching : post milkyway_windows_intelx86 problems here (Message 7434)
Posted 4 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
That's because there are probably WUs in the queues which were created when 0.6 was the latest version. As these drain out, those WUs created for 0.7 should kick in.

That's strange, because WUs don't store the app version. Only the appid, and the server will use whatever is the latest version for that app.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : No Work ? (Message 7425)
Posted 4 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
Remember to vacuum underneath the seat cushions.


That's where all the good stuff is!

The WUs are hiding there? :O
9) Message boards : Number crunching : New Work (Message 7424)
Posted 4 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
Yes, I must get out more.

'Out'?

I heard it has quite high resolution.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : credit comparison to other projects (Message 7392)
Posted 4 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
I'm running a Lemon, guess I"m outta luck. :-p

When life gives you lemons...
11) Message boards : Number crunching : credit comparison to other projects (Message 7332)
Posted 3 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
The other favorite term is "flock", as in users "flock" to projects that offer more credit. That too is an exaggeration. "Flocking" implies large groups of users. The only real migration of large groups of users are actually caused by many of the teams having a "Project of the Month"...


I remember a team website that said "Project of the month is X, but if you have 5.5.0 (which has inflated benchmarks), crunch RCN instead, since it still uses benchmark-based credits"
12) Message boards : Number crunching : credit comparison to other projects (Message 7330)
Posted 3 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
The real issue from our end is that we want to have our credits in line with other projects out of courtesy towards them.


A noble goal, to be sure, but don't let the claims of an impending "credit war" and "credit inflation" weigh too heavily on your decision-making process. These same claims have been floated for years now and none of it has happened.

None of it has happened?

I keep seeing people who ask "what's the project with the most credits/hour" to crunch for that one.
13) Message boards : Number crunching : credit comparison to other projects (Message 7244)
Posted 2 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
The better optimized SETI client uses the implemented SSE technology in Intel cpus,this sse tech offers more advantages to the software developers or to programmers who optimize apps.

SSE is supported since AMD Athlon XP. SSE2 is supported since Opteron and Athlon 64. AMD introduced a subset of SSE3 in revision E (Venice and San Diego) of their Athlon 64 CPUs.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : work availability (Message 7121)
Posted 1 Dec 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
Edit: Well this is strange, I deleted all the files in the milkyway project folder but I just downloaded 2 new WUs when there aren't supposed to be any, nor do I have the app file.

That's part of the problem: you manually deleted files. BOINC thinks the file is still there.

But I think BOINC should notice files are missing and download them... maybe it doesn't do that for app files, only WU inputs?
15) Message boards : Number crunching : work availability (Message 7017)
Posted 30 Nov 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
Decide to spend the day doing an Astropulse, and come back with a coffee to see a stack of MW and the rude message you cant have more than 20 at once you greedy sod.

You know, that would look pretty interesting... Let's do it.

[color=#a60]Index: sched_send.cpp
===================================================================[/color]
[color=red]--- sched_send.cpp      (revision 16586)[/color]
[color=green]+++ sched_send.cpp      (working copy)[/color]
@@ -1268,7 +1268,7 @@
             reply.set_delay(delay_time);
         }
         if (reply.wreq.cache_size_exceeded) {
[color=red]-            sprintf(helpful, "(reached per-CPU limit of %d tasks)",[/color]
[color=green]+            sprintf(helpful, "(you can't have more than %d at once, you greedy sod)",[/color]
                 config.max_wus_in_progress
             );
             USER_MESSAGE um(helpful, "high");

Hey Travis, can you apply the above patch? :)
16) Message boards : Number crunching : 20 workunit limit (Message 7004)
Posted 30 Nov 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
[should read whole thread before posting]
17) Message boards : Number crunching : New App status (Message 7002)
Posted 30 Nov 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
And user is n/a

Fortunately, Travis can very easily see the owner of those computers from the admin pages.
18) Message boards : Number crunching : Lots of WUs in pending - growing again! (Message 6906)
Posted 28 Nov 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
Looks like everything is going to pending again! Someone kick something!

*kicks caspr*
19) Message boards : Number crunching : New App status (Message 6903)
Posted 28 Nov 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
And someone please explain to me what does the resumes of the project scientists or admins, or what part of the globe the project is run, or how it receives it funds in ANY WAY related to this thread!

Agreed. I used to admin an (arguably) useful project before having written a resume or finished high school, so what?
20) Message boards : Number crunching : How to Switch to the New Official App? (Message 6532)
Posted 23 Nov 2008 by Nicolas
Post:
I'm looking around trying to find where I can enable this option but i'm not seeing anything... I'll email the boinc projects list to get some info (but any response will probably take awhile).

Unfortunately, there isn't just an option you can simply turn on. You have to write your own PHP code in the prefs page to show the checkboxes and add the needed <app_id> tags to the user preferences when the form is submitted.

The scheduler (which you won't have to modify) will use those tags to know what app(s) to send work of.


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