Do you have any additional specs of those MACs over there? Are they recent or are they like 15 years old? What models, CPUs, OS versions... ?
There's a worker for sure who must think about the worst possible scenario. What if one of those public MACs soon got bricked? In theory that could happen a bit quicker for for an old motherboard, in a case filled with dust and air moving nowhere. In practise that could happen any time for any electronics, because it's a joke that humankind is even able to build technology like that and it works in the beginning.

How would they handle that situation? Would they replace that broken unit with a new one. They have some sort of strategic ICT plan and that kind of sudden event would easily be taken as "never again". I think that's why it would be important not only to get them to accept your idea, but also check the specs and condition of the computers over there. Then mutually, beforehand, you could agree that nobody would be blaimed if something unpleasant happened later for any of those public computers, seemingly while they were crunching.

Secondary issue: When the system resources are maxed out by BOINC, the user of the computer will have a poor userexperience, since it will appear slow.

Having been a distributed computing volunteer since about 2002, I can say that this is generally not the case; the exceptions being poorly coded projects that generate errors, and GPU projects. CPU projects generally don't cause many issues for the user.

Best of luck on your efforts; adding BOINC to fleets of computers is what the platform needs to survive, since going at single users has not produced much growth in available hosts in recent years. However, unless you yourself have some place in the decision-making of the organization, you will probably need the assistance of a "champion" who can exert some authority. I used to work in a light IT job at a school district a number of years ago; while I was able to do BOINC on a few machines that were used for back-office functions, I was not allowed to deploy BOINC en-masse. The reasons cited then were bandwidth requirements, and simply putting more software on machines that would then have to be supported by IT staff as problems arose. Had I been able to find an administrator to provide some direction for such an endeavor, the district IT director might have been more cooperative.

Regarding the security concerns, WCG is good enough for IBM to run on their own systems--but they have a slightly customized client, and control over the servers running the project. You would definitely need to stick with a project supported/administered by a reputable institution.

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My Detailed BOINC Stats

>>> or are they like 15 years old

The machines were installed many years ago, I don't remember when, but they are probably at least ten years old. This was an aspect I had not previously considered really. I tend to upgrade my machines here every couple of years, and I suppose I've got into a sense of assuming that to be the default. I'm guessing the machines, when someone actually bothers to use them, are mostly web browsers. I wasn't expecting heavy number crunchers though. I'll try to find out exactly what they are.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

The last generation of CPU's where it made sense to run DC projects due to power concerns was the Pentium 4. After that, processors got significantly more efficient when they hybernated or went into sleep mode. So, it used to be an easy "sell" because most places didn't see an increase in power draw. Nowadays, they can see a large bump. Especially if they have a large number of systems.

The problem with security is that someone from the IT staff will have to continuously monitor BOINC and the projects chosen to guarantee that something bad doesn't happen because of it. There is no real world benefit for them to do this. They really do have better things to do. I have seen BOINC/projects run flawless on some systems and terrible on others. I've ran it on a large variety of hardware and software configurations. I've seen it work differently on clean installs on the same machines. There is a lot more to it that the IT staff will have to deal with. They will also have to dig in and learn BOINC and the projects chosen in depth to know how to tweak it properly and to maintain it as things change. Additional security audits will have to conducted on a yearly basis.

If these Macs are 10+ years old, do you happen to know if they are running on Intel CPU's or still PowerPC's? If Power PC's, then you will find them to have very few projects still supporting them.

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I need to go into the library and install Belarc to see exactly what is in them, I'll probably be able to do that in the morning.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

The libraries here are very open, I do not see a problem there. You need to have a Danish national number, a commune number and a member number, but with those, as I do, I think it is okay. The issue is persistance. The machines get wiped frequently, which is a disaster for BOINC, but for the library, a convenience. They obviously must have a disk or partition which is not wiped to avoid the necessity of reinstalling the OS etc.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

There is actually various applications out there designed to do a "clean state" on a scheduled cycle. Many universities, libraries, kiosks, etc... have setups to prevent the garbage that accumulates from resulting in constant maintenance. If they have a true IT staff, they can install BOINC and have their "solution" included in the base "image" or exclusion list. However, it would be best that you were NOT the one doing the installs but rather have the IT staff do them.

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Doing so is dependant upon having the (tacit) approval to run applications like BOINC and its associated projects - and the OP has been told that the (council) library service will not countenance doing so. And one of the "conditions" of running BOINC etc is that one has the approval of the computer owner/manager before installing or running BOINC.

There's also the problem that "clean slate" restoration wipes out any work in progress at the end of the session. If the hardware is of the order of ten years old, you'd need to pick projects which can

* reliably supply work at the first request after switch-on
* complete at least one task during an average session

as well as being from an officially sanctioned institution. Otherwise, any energy used will be entirely wasted.

>>> * complete at least one task during an average session

That was a thing I've been thinking about, I can generally hazard a guess how long things run for on my machines, BUT, I know what is in my machines, I do not know what is in the library machines. I wanted to go in today, but could not, I'll try again in the morning.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

... and this morning, we are snowed in. Hopefully, I can get into town later.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.