People have been complaining about SETI and BOINC software. I have written several messages over the past that give small insites to what I believe about this project. This message is to give those of you who are starting out, having slight issues, etc. to understand the project a little better.

SETI is a science experiment. We are here to help with science. We get credits to show our work has been done. These credits are for several reasons. To brag that you are doing well, to make a nice certificate showing your work, and to help the project administrators see how much work is being done to write purposals for grants and get money.

We are only volunteering our time, machines, and electricity. We are not forced to do this. We are not paid. SETI as a project owes us nothing, because we made up our minds to help. They supply the software, you supply some of the grunt work, and everyone works in unison.

The project originally was meant as a 2-3 year experiment. That has surpassed by several years. Classic was dead. There was no money left, and no grants coming. So a new project was born, via working with grantors and other schools, etc. looking for an easier way to get into distributed computing. BOINC was born. It's a wonderful idea. For me, it is working well for over 1.5 years. I appriciate BOINC and all the work I am doing.

SETI is bound to have issues. It brought Distributed Computing to the masses. It is the one that created a whole world of machines helping in a single cause. If you hear the words Distributed Computing, most of the time SETI comes to mind. It is a pioneer. It's the one everyone looks at to make their projects better. It is meant to break, and fix, so that the other projects can fix before they break.

The people that take time to understand what the project has become, where it is headed, and wanting to help the science will look past the current server issues, and allow their machines to help out. I personally am connected to 4 different projects, my machines stay busy, I do not micromanage, so they run without my needing to be there.

I do not see why people should be so worried about the server side of things? We can't do a lot about it, except maybe donate some money to get better hardware. The software is just fine. When it has work, it works. When the servers get back to normal, nothing changes on my end, except that I crunch SETI data, I am crunching other data in the mean time.

I hope that with this, some people will look at the larger picture. These last few days of server issues are fixable. Let the team have their time to work on it. Run the software, leave it alone, and you will have a lot less stress.

Pooh Bear,
I am sympathetic to much of what you say. But you say seti and you mean both seti and boinc I think? Sure you do as do I. For me though there are differences. I have been slated/hit/pelted/abused before for what I will reiterate again so leave it out folks - I say again then that testing for boinc is poor and that lets down seti and the other science applications at times. Great great concept no doubt but poor testing causes confidence crises. An example is the move to 5.2.x saw 3/4 versions in a day to try and get it right. If we are to ask people who expect production software to run incremental RAD style developments we have to expect a rough ride. That's what we get. Also some folks just want seti so the "do other projects" does not work for them - they don't want LHC or CPDN etc.

That's not a voice against the science from them or those people would not be here. It is a voice about how its done though. I would bolster testing considerably if I were influential - to retain reputation and provide higher conformance to spec software. They need more volunteer testers and a strategy for testing that is developed out of the problems & experiences they have seen & encountered - I will help if they want! I don't mind doing that bit more.

So I am a supporter and I give time, ideas, help and of course computers etc to this great cause. I remain, however, constructively critical with a view to making it better. Please take this as supportive!

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Tigher,

I understand fully, but what we all need to understand, there is testing done, but sometimes things have to be tested on the masses, since there are not that many volunteer testers to test every sceneario.

As for the 10 versions in a day, most of those updates were not needed by everyone. They were needed for a specific few. I mean the difference between 5.2.6 and 5.2.13 is nil for most people, but a lot for a few others. I saw no real difference in any of it. They both worked for me.

Much of the server side of things can not be pretested. There is neither the manpower, or the equipment to do some of the testing.

Again, to emphesis the idea that SETI is an experiment, and we are all rats in that experiment. Some of us get Viagra, where some of us get placebos. It's not going to be the same for everyone. No two machines are identical, no two sets of networks are exactly the same. It's impossible to know what will cause whatat times.

If SETI were more than a half dozen or so hacks programming away at probably a lot lower wages than they deserve, and all the overtime they put in (probably much of it at no pay), then I would say that this stuff that has happened, should not. Since it is an underfunded, low man on the totem poll try of project, it is what it is.

BOINC itself is working fine. There is a difference in the two softwares. I have no issues with BOINC, for the most part. It's been stable for me through many updates. Yes some had networking issues, but many did not. BOINC and SETI are two seperate enteties and should be thought of, as such.

Thank you for your post, and your thoughts. It's diversity that makes the world go round.

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