Why is BOINC closed source?

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maddog39

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Joined: 16 Jan 07
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Message 7544 - Posted: 16 Jan 2007, 22:16:17 UTC

Hello all,

I am curious why BOINC is closed source. I am using PowerPC Linux now and are completely incapable of running BOINC unless I get a source tarball. I'm actually surprised to see that Berkeley will not release source code packages because if people were able to compile specifically for their hardware, more WU's would be completed within a certain span of time because the software is highly optimized for the client's hardware. Just a thought really.

-maddog39
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Profile KSMarksPsych
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Joined: 30 Oct 05
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Message 7548 - Posted: 17 Jan 2007, 6:06:25 UTC
Last modified: 17 Jan 2007, 7:22:27 UTC

Ummm....

Try here to download the source code from the CVS.

But a core client by itself won't help unless the project has a science app for that platform.
Kathryn :o)
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Profile Jord
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Message 7551 - Posted: 17 Jan 2007, 14:00:02 UTC

As has been said, BOINC is Open Source. You can download source code for it and compile that yourself. What you seem to confuse yourself with is the actual (science) application, the program you download from the project, which does all the crunching for that project. They aren't all Open Source.

The projects aren't all Berkeley based though. Heck, the only Berkeley based project is Seti@Home and its applications are Open Source. See here for options to download (precompiled) versions of BOINC/Seti for PowerPC/Linux.
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Message boards : BOINC Manager : Why is BOINC closed source?

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