Distributed Computing - FAQ

Questions

1. This site

1.1. How is this site updated? This site is owned and edited solely by Kirk Pearson. It exists as a set of static HTML files, which I design and edit by hand using my favorite text-editing tool, vi. I and a group of volunteer reporters visit the projects listed on this site, as well as Usenet newsgroups, websites such as Slashdot and Google, other distributed computing projects pages and other resources, to look for news updates and new projects. I manually add these updates to the site and publish the updates when enough of them have accumulated.

1.2. When is the site updated? How often is the site updated? Why isn't it updated daily/hourly/continuously? I update the site whenever I have time. Usually during week days. I don't have any way (yet) to update it automatically. I have a full-time job (which isn't this site (yet)), a wife who is busier than I am, three kids under 10 years of age (who are full-time jobs in themselves), and two dogs who think the rest of my time should be spent entertaining them instead of working at my computer, so I can't commit to updating this site on a regular schedule or frequency.

1.3. Why is the site so ugly/old-fashioned/boring-looking? Hey, it was pretty cool in 2000 :-). I designed the look and layout of the site in 2000 when I first created it. I didn't have time to learn or use fancy layout tools then, and I still don't now. The information on the site is the most important part of it, and the information is what I spend my time on updating. I have plans to make it fancier and more customizable some day, but I don't have time to implement them any time soon.

1.4. Why aren't the projects organized alphabetically/by platform/by popularity/chronologically/by whatever way I want to see them listed? Since I edit the site manually, reorganizing the projects takes a lot of time. When I designed the site, I organized the projects into categories (with the categories listed in no particular order) and listed each project in the order I discovered it (with the oldest project first). This layout gives a rough chronological/historical view of the projects in each category and allows you to see how ideas have developed from older projects to newer ones.

2. Distributed computing projects

2.1. Where are all of the for-pay projects? How can I find out which projects pay me to run them? Why aren't there more for-pay projects? Look for projects with the rotating US dollar sign icon. As of November 22, 2004, the only for-pay project is Gomez Peer (which pays about US5ドル per computer per month). ProcessTree Network is the only computing project which promised to pay contributors for their work, but it ended before it released a paying project. Some other projects have offered sweepstakes prizes, but we are still waiting for the first for-pay distributed computing project. As soon as I hear of one I will add it to this site. I don't know why there aren't more for-pay projects yet, but I assume that companies which want to run large projects a) don't trust the security or results from public distributed computing networks, b) can run the projects more cheaply in-house, or c) haven't found an economical/easy way to administer these projects for a large base of contributors.

2.2. Which projects are supported on my platform/operating system/CPU speed? I only have enough time to track 4 major platforms for each project (Windows, Linux, MacOS(X), and Solaris). The project websites usually list their specific system requirements and limitations. I hope to provide more detailed information in the future. And why do I list Solaris and not HP/UX, AIX, Irix and other Unix flavors? Because of the company I work for and because I really like it.

2.3. Why don't you rate projects or recommend specific projects? I want people to study all of the projects and to decide for themselves which projects are important to them and which projects they want to support. Also, distributed computing is still such a new field of science that all of these projects need our support. I am not funded or influenced by any organization or project, and I try to give unbiased, objective reviews of all projects.

2.4. Many of the URLs for recently completed and past projects don't work any more. Why don't you update them? Why do you keep them? Once a project's website is no longer hosted, it can be very difficult to find out more about the project (where it was hosted, whether it moved to a different URL, etc.) without the project's URL. I keep the old URLs for historical and reference purposes. Also, sometimes a new project is begun, or updated information is posted about an old project, at an old project's URL. Finally, a URL can sometimes give extra information about a project, like the country or organization in which it was created.

3. Distributed computing theory