We definitely do contribute back to BOINC our useful changes* and have done so in the past. In particular, we added vastly expanded support for multiple sub-projects, the 'reliable' host mechanism and a number of other items. Grep the BOINC change logs for Kevin Reed or WCG or World Community Grid if you want more details.

However, homogeneous redundancy is a feature that was already a key part of BOINC even before we started using BOINC.

* We do have some not useful changes. These are things like expanding the shared memory size up to 3600 slots instead of the default 100. We also have a hack in place currently to avoid issues with how BOINC handles assignment of homogeneous redundancies to slots. Once we implement a better solution we will contribute that as well.

We are also about 9 months behind BOINC source currently and will hopefully be updating soon. BOINC requests that we be in sync with HEAD prior to contributing our most recent changes so we will be returning some code after that.

As to the point of this thread. There are many many things that we want to do. Some of them are things members ask for, some of them are things that make the tech teams life easier, some of them reduce our costs, some of them help the researchers, etc. This list is vastly larger then time available to implement. This is true of most things in life.

Please do not think that because we do not implement this feature it is because we are dismissing your view point. It is simply a matter of having the time to implement.

Ok, then how about adding a few more profile slots? As it stands right now I have 6 computers doing assorted things around the house/work. Being able to set up a profile specific to each of them would allow the OCD tweaking that I want to be able to both work on the projects that I really want to & also to do some badge hunting.



Weighted scheduling (by percent of resources sent to each project) I agree would be a nightmare to make work. However it shouldn't be that difficult to implement a priority system of some sort.

(I'm not a programmer so you'll need to translate for those who are ) When setting up a profile the person would rank the projects 1-x. Using "if then" statements the program would go to #1 (say CEP) & if there was no work available then go to #2 (HCC) & repeat the process. Etc.

****

It's funny, over the years I have spent a lot of time either volunteering or sitting on boards that implement volunteer labor for some project (Scouting, church groups, library boards, etc). What's really sad is that almost always, on both sides of the table, there are hurt feelings because most can't see the forest for the trees. The volunteers forget that the end result is what they are working towards & that some of the things that they want to do really don't help reach that end. The professionals on the other hand, forget that the volunteers are just that - volunteers. If the organizers make things to difficult for them, eventually they will stop complaining & just walk away instead.

Sadly I've started to see the same thing here at WCG (perhaps it has been there for a long time but I've finally started seeing the forest). Because of the incredibly long term nature of all the projects, it is hard to see any short term progress. Because of that some of the crunchers (myself included ) like to fiddle/micro manage their settings so that they can actually see things relating to their input change. While the best thing may be to set up the computer once, turn it on & walk away to let it crank untouched for a few years - that's probably not going to happen.

On the tech side of things, the attitude of "we're saving the world, don't bother us" isn't going to do much towards keeping people willing to help. If it's going to take years if not decades to make progress on the problems that all this computer time is being devoted to, then spending/investing towards good will a week or two of programming time to give the volunteers shiny buttons & knobs to push & turn to their heart's content is at the very least a smart thing to do (it might even be considered an essential part of the process).

Anyway, just my 2% of a $ for the morning...