Hmm, I wonder if all this is behind the lethargy that's overtaken CMS@Home-dev lately? I'm starting to seriously reconsider my position as its public face.
Interesting times, I'd always felt bending our workflows to fit with the BOINC model was a bit Procrustean, be interesting to see if this prompts a re-think.

---

I suppose out of context my comment seems a bit confusing.

Ask these "fine folks" what you can do with all your earned credit....once all the drama settles you'll be left with 1 simple answer. Nothing...you did it for the science.

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I would really like to see an advanced common cruncher or 2 (no more then that-it'd be too many cooks in the kitchen) added to the PMC Team. My suggestion would be for Arkayn, Ageless or Richard Haselgrove to officially join the crew.

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I would really like to see an advanced common cruncher or 2 (no more then that-it'd be too many cooks in the kitchen) added to the PMC Team. My suggestion would be for Arkayn, Ageless or Richard Haselgrove to officially join the crew.

+5M. I'd add Claggy too

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

I would really like to see an advanced common cruncher or 2 (no more then that-it'd be too many cooks in the kitchen) added to the PMC Team.

Well, as I read it, that's possible. You'll just have to email the PMC email list, which errm no one knows what it is. ;-)

PMC public email list, used for
* Requests to be a submitter.
* Requests to be a PMC member.
* Project-level discussion.

---

You'll just have to email the PMC email list, which errm no one knows what it is. ;-)

When in doubt, send email to boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu.

Overall things are not in that bad of shape. A new grant request has been submitted to the NSF based on feedback from various sources. We don't expect to hear anything back from NSF until early next year.

Until then, my deal with IBM/WCG gives me some room to continue some of my BOINC related work. I suspect most things will continue on auto-pilot for awhile as far as general maintenance goes.

---

----- Rom
BOINC Development Team, U.C. Berkeley
My Blog

Having written this thing for a couple of days,I just sent an email to all of the lists with a lot of questions that are probably also on your minds.
I'll post the same thing integral here, since not everyone reads all of those email lists, yet you're all part of that community that no one has seen fit to inform. :)

************
It has been a week since the news about the new Governance BOINC came out. Time for some of the questions that keep people busy:

Programming: "In all cases, contributors are expected to work as part of the community." You and Rom have been adding code- and bug-fixes this past week. Are you exempt from having to discuss any of your code with the rest of the community, or is this only for newcomers or only for new feature code?

Documentation: what of those users that have an editor account already, will their account continue to work as it was before?
What of those with administrator power but not mentioned as a committer?
Which changes are they allowed to make, is this with or without consent of the community/PMC?
When do they have to ask the committers for help?
Can any page be added without permission, or do I have to ask permission every time I want to add a page?

Communication channels: "The project will provide communication channels for various purposes: PMC public email list..." So far, none has been provided.

PMC: why was it decided to add a PMC?
Why not have just one or two deciders?
Who has decided who is in the initial group?
Were they all asked, or were they appointed?
Is there any transparency in how they were chosen?
How about they introduce themselves on the (PMC) email list?
When did they decide that David should become their chairman?
Why isn't there already one or two people from the community included?

Email lists: what's the boinc_admin googlegroup for and what does it add that the boinc_* email lists don't already have?
Will the boinc_* email lists from Berkeley die out now?
You ask that people email you on boinc_admin@googlegroups.com, but don't tell that they should go to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/boinc_admin to register as member of that group, as else they will not receive emails from that group, or answers to their question if someone chooses to only answer to boinc_admin* like what happened with the answer to Nicolás Alvarez. It isn't intuitive that these groups need registration to be able to follow the conversation on there.

The News Is Not Out There: "BOINC is a community-based open-source project." But at the same time, the community that is supposed to make this project is not informed of their role. I have made a trawl through all of the projects on the http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php list, plus some added from bookmarks. In all I searched in about 45 project forums and found discussion about this new Governance BOINC in just three (!!) of them (Bitcoin Utopia, WCG and Seti).
It's not even discussed in any of the project forums of the people named in the PMC, apart from WCG and Seti. And only in the thread on the latter has one person from the PMC answered once (Rom). All threads seem to have died out now.

News like this should have been sent through the Notices to reach as many people from the community as possible.
Also the timing of the news was a bit suspicious, posting it on the 3rd of July, right before all of America is away for pre-celebrations of the 4th of July and the start of vacation time in a lot of countries in the Northern Hemisphere. It's as if the news shouldn't have been out there, or that it needs downplaying on the importance of the change. The one line, two sentences 'News' bit on the BOINC front page didn't make it any clearer either. Even I didn't recognize it as 'THE ANNOUNCEMENT', which is why I asked you to post the news on the BOINC website.

Apart from two follow-up mails from members of the community, this news has been met with total silence. Either it isn't received by anyone, no one understands what you meant, or no one cares. Or the importance of it is lost on everyone. I would've expected something more, or at least someone else with a lot of questions like I am now sending in. But since that time, it's been total silence in this thread. So perhaps a renewed explanation is needed, or a teleconference. Put a video about it on Youtube?

Last, something that Rom said and has me thinking: "A new grant request has been submitted to the NSF based on feedback from various sources. We don't expect to hear anything back from NSF until early next year." .. does that mean that when you find new funding, that you turn off the community-based BOINC again, thank all members of the PMC and go back to how it was developed/produced before?

I'll leave it there, for now. It's possible I come up with additional questions, but will wait first to see what, if anything, I get back on these.
In the mean time, I'll link to the threads I mentioned in the three project forums, in case people want to read up on them.

Bitcoin Utopia http://www.bitcoinutopia.net/bitcoinutopia/forum_thread.php?id=887
WCG http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,38168
Seti https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=77650

***********

Waiting for my kick... ;-)

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After thinking about this for a couple of days with no new development things will continue as they are. That is not a disaster for DC as I see it. The thing that bothers me credit new has no chance of getting fixed and without that cross project comparisons will remain to be impossible.

---

After thinking about this for a couple of days with no new development things will continue as they are. That is not a disaster for DC as I see it. The thing that bothers me credit new has no chance of getting fixed and without that cross project comparisons will remain to be impossible.

The analysis I started with outstanding help from various sources (including Albert@hoime and Einstein@home), worked out that some of the core issues with creditnew have a lot of bearing on other problems considered more critical than credit/parity. The (flawed) underlying mechanism is all wired into task estimates, which we know break in some pretty strange and unnecessary ways, and are key to control of task scheduling etc,

For those interested, more information can be found at https://wiki.atlas.aei.uni-hannover.de/foswiki/bin/view/EinsteinAtHome/BOINC/EvaluationOfCreditNew#Introduction , and begins:

Superficially BOINC credit related issues are often deemed of little scientific consequence, by users and project staff alike. However, as a measure of work the interrelationship of task estimates and important backend and client functionality is critical. Correct work estimation is central to scheduling of tasks to be processed at all levels, and therefore forms the backbone of making BOINC a valuable scientific instrument.
Here are some notes describing the key identified deficiencies, noting overall that there is a temporal mismatch between the demands of user experience, expectation hardwired into the BOINC client software, and the needs of BOINC server software.
These are primarily identified as basic control systems related issues to be addressed, with 'Open questions' intended to identify key related aspects (such as reliability and maintenance demands), so that project developer and end-user experience may be improved.

My personal time resources, and communications hurdles brought about by a lack of faith in engineering practices and 'too many cooks', became limits there, where I'm quite hopeful that industry wide moves toward Agile processes will eventually win out and see things righted. (as opposed to multilevel committee based goon squads, lol), but not something I could force, nor have the constitution to do alone.

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Can only give my 2 cents on those questions, for what they are worth in this context.

I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the difference between an Academic/institutionalised approach, versus a corporate/business one. The way I see it the latter tends to look for unfulfilled needs to turn into opportunity & rewards, whene the former can often be more about keeping b*ns on seats.

A substantial number of people I communicate with tend to believe that Boinc as it stands, in maintenance/autopilot mode, fulfills those needs, while I suspect the spectrum of customers would strongly disagree (with good anecdotal support behind that suspicion).

Best I can figure the governance document is a last ditch attempt to maintain a semblance of control over those changing needs & opportunities, that it missed & failed to nurture. I would argue that there are too many alienated from the system for that approach to work, and it needs a rethink.

Bear in mind there have been massive strides worldwide iin software development over the last 10 years, and none of the (successful, modern) approaches look like that (except Perhaps Apple ?, can't confirm how they work).

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Some of the answers thus far, done by Rom Walton.

Jord wrote:

Programming: "In all cases, contributors are expected to work as part of the community." You and Rom have been adding code- and bug-fixes this past week. Are you exempt from having to discuss any of your code with the rest of the community, or is this only for newcomers or only for new feature code?

Difference in rolls I suppose. Committers are assigned areas of responsibility (See section 2.3) where they are expected to evaluate bug reports and code submissions. Sections 4 and 5 talk about the scope of things committers are expected to do on a day-to-day basis.

Right now most of the feature areas and the various areas of responsibility are on David's and my plate. I suspect things will start changing as we start working through the new model of doing things.

Jord wrote:

Documentation: what of those users that have an editor account already, will their account continue to work as it was before?
What of those with administrator power but not mentioned as a committer?
Which changes are they allowed to make, is this with or without consent of the community/PMC?
When do they have to ask the committers for help?
Can any page be added without permission, or do I have to ask permission every time I want to add a page?

Is there something specific you want to address? How were these things addressed before the change over?
How do you think they should be addressed now?

Jord wrote:

PMC: why was it decided to add a PMC?
Why not have just one or two deciders?

David has joked a time or two that one of his biggest fears was me being hit by a bus.

I guess you could say that the PMC is a logical outgrowth of that kind of concern. What would happen to the project if something happened with David and I. With the PMC in place there is a logical place for the community to look to keep things together.

Jord wrote:

Who has decided who is in the initial group?

David, one of his last official acts in the benevolent dictator role.

Jord wrote:

Were they all asked, or were they appointed?

Asked and they agreed to be a part of it.

Jord wrote:

Is there any transparency in how they were chosen?

Not really.

Jord wrote:

When did they decide that David should become their chairman?

June 10th

Jord wrote:

Will the boinc_* email lists from Berkeley die out now?

Not as far as I know.

Jord wrote:

Last, something that Rom said and has me thinking: "A new grant request has been submitted to the NSF based on feedback from various sources. We don't expect to hear anything back from NSF until early next year." .. does that mean that when you find new funding, that you turn off the community-based BOINC again, thank all members of the PMC and go back to how it was developed/produced before?

I don't think this is something you walk back.

----- Rom

---

An Answer from Christian Beer:

Hi fellow members of the BOINC Community,

I want to address some of the points made here or in the forum threads
Jord mentioned and provide my point of view to this. As a longtime BOINC
contributor I feel honored to be a member of the PMC and I will continue
and hopefully intensify my contribution to BOINC as a project.

The PMC was established to discuss and formulate the strategic goals of
BOINC not the operational day-to-day activities of contributors and
committers. So for most people directly involved in maintaining BOINC it
is business as usual with the difference that now everything needs to be
done in free time. I hope that the PMC will encourage contributors (old
and new) to come forward and present new ideas or suggest changes to
BOINC or the governance model as a whole. I don't see this as something
set into stone and it is sometimes easier to find a majority among a
group of people than in a single individual.

From what I read in the forum discussion about the governance change is
that the group of "Users" as a stakeholder feels it is underrepresented
in the PMC. I didn't have the feeling when I saw the list as I consider
Matt and Willy as representatives of the "User" community. But it's also
clear to me that if the community wants this to change, the process is
clear. Find someone who is willing to accept a position in the PMC and
post to this mailing list. I would be willing to initiate a vote so this
person becomes a member of the PMC and is part of the decision process.

Another point I want to make clear is the distinction between "Users"
and "Contributors" in respect to the BOINC project. A "Contributor" is
someone who contributes code, writes documentation or helps other
"Users" with problems. It is not someone who contributes computing time
through BOINC to a scientific project, that is clearly a "User". See the
sections 2.1 and 2.2 in the governance document.

As the discussion in the several forums revolve around the governance
model I would suggest to discuss this first (on the boinc_admin google
group). Please focus on changes to the current model.

MfG / Regards
Christian Beer

---

It looks like it's possible some SETI@home funding is coming down the pike.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/20/searching-for-et-hawking-to-look-for-extraterrestrial-life.html

The article says a "Breakthrough Listen" program will support Berkeley's SETI@home project.

We shall see . . . . .

---

"It is often darkest just before it turns completely black."

It looks like it's possible some SETI@home funding is coming down the pike.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/20/searching-for-et-hawking-to-look-for-extraterrestrial-life.html

The article says a "Breakthrough Listen" program will support Berkeley's SETI@home project.

We shall see . . . . .

In the News section:
Big boost for SETI@home from Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Listen Initiative
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=77751&postid=1703344#1703344

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Stressing that according to David Anderson None of that money will go to BOINC, but a little of it might help SETI@home. Before people start to believe that BOINC will be paid out of this, which it will not.

---

Stressing that according to David Anderson None of that money will go to BOINC, but a little of it might help SETI@home. Before people start to believe that BOINC will be paid out of this, which it will not.

well the Seti guys might buy a round of coffee for the BOINC guys ....

---

Hi,

I gues I will ask a big question.
How big of a hole does this "temporary" I hope lack of funding cause to any remaining budget?

Check out the news forum, 100mill available plus time on parkes etc to S@H
its also in news at BBC in the UK
Still no clear indication of how much funding S@H will get outta the 100 mill tho....

Regards,

---

Cliff,
Been there, Done that, Still no damm T shirt!

Blurf left this message over in Seti Cafe

Quoting from Eric on FB:

The amount of this funding that will go to the SETI@home portion is pretty small. Much will go to the observatories, some will go to instrument development. I have yet to see whether we're going to get a couple FTEs for SETI@home.

:( I had high hopes that at least a % of that might find it's way to Seti since they talked about it during the presentation.

---

Well for Seti@home itself, I suspect even a very small portion would go a long way, with decent funding over a longer term. Something on the scale of $100 mil IMO would be engineered with more chickens in many baskets. The spinoffs in all related fields (including Boinc survival) IMO could be considered decent legacies in their own right for the proponents (Milner and Hawking). Whether or not those come about from the Initial funding, or by way of other sponsorship/grants in support of the endeavour, probably doesn't matter any more than which efforts get the most.

I think amateur would be the wrong word too though. Shoestring budget and not in 'Big Engineering Mode'' probably applies, which seems to be the trend for governments everywhere. Private funding seems to be the way things get done more and more. It's aired on the nightly news over here in OZ just now, so they seem quite committed. That'll make some nice changes IMO, even if seti@home gets very little.

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

SETI@home already got very much. Such big coverage in news over whole world! I think it was never happened before in such scale.