Talk:List of distributed computing projects/Archive 1

Archive 1

Should be grid computing

Distributed computing in wikipedia has a connotation of being much more tightly coupled than this type of project. The wikipedia entry that best describes this sort of project is grid computing. I suggest a move is desirable to List of grid computing projects. --David Woolley

I partly agree, but I also disagree with you. Yes, it fits better as far as the wikipedia articles for grid computing. However, in the actual distributed computing communities all over the Internet, I have always seen it referred to as "distributed computing" and never "grid computing" so from that viewpoint, I still think it should be left as is ("List of distributed computing projects"). PS2pcGAMER 14:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll admit, I have very limited experience in this topic, but as a layperson let me mention that I have only heard of these projects referred to as "distributed computing," even if it is true that this term has a more general meaning than specifically this type of project. If you all do decide to change the name of this article, I suggest you make the change a wikipedia-wide policy, and make sure any articles referring to articles of this type use the accepted vocabulary. Perhaps this issue should be posted on related talk pages as well to draw input.Shaggorama 13:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I think the list of distributed computing research projects should be categorized by field of study (economics, mathematics, Internet, cryptography, biology, physics, etc.) Do you agree? /Gary Germeil /4th of April 2006

SETI@home computes data at more than 100 TFLOPS

According to Boinc Stats page the average computation speed is around 235 TFLOPS. - G3, 12:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Project statistics and reference from Distributed computing

This just appeared in the Distributed computing article, but seems better placed here. --Allan McInnes (talk) 14:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Popular projects in volunteer distributed computing:

Project	Start	Where	Area	Peak_#hosts
GIMPS	1996	?	mathematics	10,000
distributed.net	1997	?	cryptography	100,000
SETI@home I	1999	University of California, Berkeley	SETI	600,000
Folding@home	1999	Stanford University	biology	200,000
Grid.org	2002	commercial (United Devices)	biomedicine	200,000
Climateprediction.net	2003	University of Oxford	climate change	150,000
LHC@home	2004	CERN	physics	60,000
Predictor@home	2004	Scripps Research Institute	biology	100,000
World Community Grid	2004	commercial (IBM)	biomedicine	200,000
Einstein@home	2005	LIGO	astrophysics	200,000
SETI@home II	2005	University of California, Berkeley	SETI	850,000
Rosetta@home	2005	University of Washington	biology	100,000
SIMAP	2005	Technical University of Munich	bioinformatics	10,000

Source: A Million Years of Computing - David P. Anderson, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley

Most popular projects

In the section "Most popular projects" the number of hosts for the World Community Grid is given by a link to grid.org. As fas as I know, these two projects are not the same thing. Page Up 19:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

For-Profit/Not-for-profit research

Maybe it should specifiy if the research results are open to everyone, if they are for-profit etc.GeoAtreides (talk) 10:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Distributed computing based on computers?

Does anyone know of any distributed computing organizations dedicated to learn about computers/machines themselves? Voyaging^(talk) 20:36, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Free Rainbow Tables

Free Rainbow Tables was just added to the list of projects, but there is currently a discussion ongoing in the mailing list boinc_projects about the morality of it. Some have suggested that instead of proving that current encryption methods aren't enough, they will just take the passwords and run. It has also been suggested that black-hat hackers could use it for their own services. I believe that until this can be resolved, it should not be on the list of projects, especially if it turns out to be a very dangerous project. Michael's Programming (talk) 17:35, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Main reason is that many people believe this website is just to be used for the gain of black-hat hackers. People submit MD5 hashes, which are used by many systems for password hashing, and they are returned unhashed a couple days later. Also, the server is being run from the admin's garage in Denmark, and neither of the admins offer any contact info outside of an email address. There is one email on the boinc_projects mailing list that outlines all the issues, but the archive is only available to list members right now. Michael's Programming (talk) 17:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Use a category

I have created a category Category:Distributed_computing_projects. That should be used in place of having a page such as Listing.Chirag 15:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It can't be in-place of a Listing — not every distributed computing project has its own Wikipedia page, especially during the part of its lifecycle when it has produced few results — but is a useful supplement to this listing. Donal Fellows (talk) 10:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

the figures seems to be a bit confusing

Folding@Home at the fastestet folding projects seems to be at 5.033 Peta FLOPS according to Folding@Home wikipedia and thus the scheme at the bottom of the page, should be edited from 8.1PFLOP/s to 5PFLOP/s respectively. as a note, for this date, 06 Jul 2009 the corrent FLOP count is at 7.5PFLOP/s, maybe it is possible to somehow connect the two pages so these figures will automatically be changed? this is quite confusing..Ismahill (talk) 22:27, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Other projects

Shouldn't Open Science Grid (www.opensciencegrid.org) be on this page somewhere? --Bill.albing 15:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

this doesn't look real to me:

• Artificial Intelligence Reverse Engineering the Brain.

Spot 03:42, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

What about M4, the Enigma code breaking project?--VAcharon 08:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this list intended to be limited to voluntary distributed computing projects? It seems that a platform like Storm botnet should certainly qualify for listing in terms of scale. Or, if this is intended for voluntary efforts, or some other form of restriction that excludes such projects, it would be worth making a note to that effect. In either case, it would be worth including a link to information about botnets, since some of them clearly are major distributed computing projects. Zodon (talk) 19:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I notice that DPAD Muon1 isn't listed anywhere, even though it's one of the few truly huge-scale projects (RC5-64 was 10^15 keys, each of the lattices in muon1 has around 10^600 to 10^900 possible designs). It's homepage is at Muon1 and is one of the very few projects to use an evolutionary format, rather than the more basic brute-force method. 68.158.219.165 (talk) 23:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Popularity vs Flops

Boinc has 490k users, but only 5.4 TFlops. Folding@home has 450k users and 9.3 TFlops. Should the marque be held by the most popular, or the fastest? Darkstar1st (talk) 13:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

this article still looks like a disaster

despite the simple title topic, it has way too many sections and subsections. why is folding@home in its own section? why reference its speed? what does it matter if the projects are 'boinc' or not? why is there a separate 'volunteer' section? and etc.

i suggest we try to make it as simple as described: a list of projects - active, finished, and 'upcoming or in beta testing'.

ok guys i made this page look like a projects list. note it is still very scattered below. don't have time right now to put each in its proper section above or to see if they are all still active.Clarksmom (talk) 21:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The term is "Volunteer Computing"

It's not "distributed computing": that's a general term that encompasses all forms of computation and storage using networked computers.

It's not "Grid computing": that refers to distributed computing using resources owned by organizations (companies, universities), and in which there is no distinction between resource providers and resource users.

And yes, this article is a mess. Reduce it to 1 list, alphabetical order, not "BOINC" and "other". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rare4 (talk • contribs) 02:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Folding@Home

This project is listed as using the BOINC infrastructure as well as under custom, running the "COSM" infrastructure. Is this a mistake?? SuperMidget 16:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

 Corrected. 71.146.131.14 23:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is folding, the world's fastest Distributed Computer buried in the "other" catagory beneath the "most popular?" BONIC. Folding is exponentially faster at 8.1 petraflops? In Addition, folding originally broke the 1 petraflop record years ago, and has not been surpassed. I made this correction only to see it edited out.Darkstar1st (talk) 16:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I took "most popular" to mean either the most active users or the most active hosts. I couldn't find active users on F@H, so I used hosts. Feel free to change the wording to mean something else if it's not most popular. Michael's Programming (talk) 17:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how the most users could produce a fraction of the flops of a distributed computer with less users?

This fact suggests BONIC reporting is inaccurate, or its users not correctly configured for optimal performance to the project. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkstar1st (talk • contribs) 17:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the disparity is. The only thing I can point to is how many more GPUs and PS3s F@H has compared to BOINC. In BOINC, they're only starting to make headway. Once GPUs ramp up some more, the FLOP counts should come up. IMO, of course. Michael's Programming (talk) 17:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

At times, there seems to be some confusion, calling the BOINC infrastructure a Distributed Computing "Project" when BOINC is clearly not a DC project. At most, it is a collection of DC projects. So when referring to the most popular or most powerful project, I think we do a disservice to the individual projects. Certainly BOINC is both the most popular and most powerful DC framework, but does not belong in the discussions about projects, unless it applies to the entire collection of Projects using the BOINC infrastructure. Even then, we should make that distinction; that BOINC was referenced as the collection of projects. 7im (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

folding@home is now the second fastest network in the world since bitcoin has by far surpassed it (see http://www.bitcoinwatch.com). I made a change a few weeks ago that highlighted this. However, this change has been reverted for some reason. It's factually incorrect so I think it should be changed back. 213.66.122.5 (talk) 17:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

This is getting silly. I understand that some editors are big fans of Folding@home. It is a commendable project, it might be the fastest project, but these are not sufficient reason to disorganize the list just so that Folding@home can be at the top, or to give it its own section. The page is organized as BOINC and non-BOINC because of the ease with which a BOINC user can participate in several projects simultaneously, while non-BOINC projects must be run separately. Dividing the list into two sections therefore constitutes a convenience and service to readers who are choosing projects in which they might participate, which is the central purpose of the list. As a compromise, I am putting the all of the non-BOINC projects like Folding@home at the top of the page. I hope this settles the matter. Vgy7ujm (talk) 23:26, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Table

This page has been bothering me for a long time, so I decided to do some preliminary work on fixing it up. I added a sortable table which displays relevant information about each project in such a way that the reader can quickly gather information. As much as I am rooting for Folding@home, this table also presents things in a neutral way, since it avoids descriptions that can be biased and persuasive. I full believe that this table is superior to a regular simple list, so perhaps the page should be renamed/moved or something. This article differs from other lists on Wikipedia because each of the list elements can be easily categorized and described, far more than say, List of skin conditions. For example, I would come on to this page to know a bit more about each project, but not too much. What does it pursue? Who runs it? How popular/powerful is it? When was it launched? With the table I'm working on, this information is rapidly obvious, and the reader can also sort by columns, which is handy if one is looking for all non-BOINC projects. If I want a length description about each project I can click on the wikilink. So that's why I'm building this table. Hopefully this article will look nice pretty soon, something that's long overdue. Jessemv (talk) 03:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, this page could be helpful for the list. I realize that there are duplicates between the table and the list below, I'll fix that later. Also, I should probably manually sort the table so the projects are in alphabetical order. Jessemv (talk) 04:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Table is now sorted by project name. When it contains all of the projects, I'll split it into two tables, one under the section Active Projects, and the other Inactive Projects. That's my plan, feel free to help out of course! :D Jessemv (talk) 06:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

nice table jesse. but world community grid runs several different projects, if you want to break them down. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.230.73.143 (talk) 09:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

All right. I'll see what I can do. I'm not entirely sure how I'll go about it though. Should those WCG subprojects have their own entries in the table or what? Jessemv (talk) 16:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Listed the subprojects in WCG's description, with the appropriate wikilinks to the articles on those subprojects. Satisfactory? Jessemv (talk) 05:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

jesse that does look clearer, thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clarksmom (talk • contribs) 21:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Your welcome to help. Don't make me do all the work! :D I'm especially looking for filling in those bits of information that are missing in the table (particularly launch dates) and I'd like to make sure that there aren't any non-BOINC projects that aren't on this article. Also, I've gathered all the information from this page that I could for all active BOINC projects, (especially launch dates) but since that's not a reliable source I marked the information with Citation Needed until we can find a proper source. Jessemv (talk) 22:20, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

folding@home vs bitcoin

It says that folding is currently the fastest distributed computing network in the world at 12.5 Pflop. First, I don't even think that this number is correct. Second, and more importantly, even if that number is correct, Bitcoin is even higher which makes folding@home the second largest DCN. According to www.bitcoinwatch.com the bitcoin network is about 19.3 Petaflops/s. 213.66.122.5 (talk) 19:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

i cant find the stats for bitcoin? plz post the link to stats. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

See http://www.bitcoinwatch.com It's in the bottom left corner 213.66.122.5 (talk) 21:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Bitcoin's speed in FLOPS on bitcoinwatch.com is based on wrong assumptions. First, bitcoins are generated using SHA-256 hashing operations which consist entirely of integer and logical ops. One can estimate the speed in flops by looking at the FLOPs/hashes-per-second ratio for single CPU or GPU. This ratio is much higher for CPUs but most bitcoins nowadays are generated using GPUs. So the FLOPs speed of the Bitcoin network is about 5 to 7 times overestimated. Icaci (talk) 21:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

The computing power of bitcoin currently stated as +100 peta flops is completely unbelievable and should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.11.117 (talk) 23:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, and I see it has been for some time now. I don't know why on earth they would report ~140 petaFLOPS. To me that number is so ridiculously high as to appear extremely unlikely. Modern supercomputers just hit 10 petaFLOPS, and Folding@home sits at 8.9 with its network of CPUs, GPUs, and PS3s. I have yet to understand how Bitcoin got that number, and how it can surpass the K computer's performance by an order of magnitude. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. As stated above (I've also read this elsewhere) that Bitcoin's hashes are all integer operations, and thus their performance is exactly 0 peta(Floating Point Operations Per Second). However, I'm absolutely convinced that Bitcoin is very powerful in terms of integer operations, but FLOPS is intrinsically the wrong measurement, which makes any comparison like that invalid. Jessemv (talk) 04:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Is Bitcoin not in the list any more? It obviously is the fastest DCN in the world. Not to list it would seem plain ridiculous to me. Was there a discussion about the removal someone could point me to?

from a paper by the milken institute: page 26 right paragraph http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SrM8dAHedwcJ:www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/review/2012_1/22-31MR53.pdf+petaflops&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de

""" All told, the network constitutes the mostpowerful supercomputer in the world. Calcu-lating at 130 petaflops (a thousand trillionfloating-point operations per second), it is or-ders of magnitude faster than the world’s fast-est supercomputer, the K Computer in Kobe,Japan (eight petaflops), as well as other com-putational networks including SETI@Home(which searches radio telescope data for sig-nals from aliens at half a petaflop), and Fold-ing@Home (which simulates protein-foldingfor medical research at four petaflops). """

if you like to check or do the estimate yourself you can go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38064.0 it is quite simple actually. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phelix77 (talk • contribs) 15:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much for those informative links. Very helpful, and I certainly know a lot more about how Bitcoin than I did before. This is not the first discussion about Bitcoin, and it probably won't be the last. See I don't think Bitcoin is a distributed computing project. It's distributed, and it does computing, but computing is not its focus. The flow of digital currency is. See this reference which is already in the article for a definition of distributed computing. Bitcoin falls outside the definition of distributed computing, so in that sense it didn't properly belong in the list. I made a brief mention of what I've done at the bottom of this page, and if you edit the page you'll discover that it's not actually "removed". It's simply commented out. I'm trying to not confuse the public by listing extra non-DC projects (the sublist on grid computing is tolerable until we figure out where that should go) but I didn't want to remove it entirely since then its slightly more difficult to get back. Concerning the subissue of FLOPS, the latter reference you provided admitted that "I am aware we are not actually doing any FLOPS". Thus even with a conversion, there are no Floating Point Operations per Second actually being done. 0. The FLOPS measurement is simply converted for the purposes of that record and to make a number that "people who know NOTHING about computing" can use to compare. But in reality it actually does 0 FLOPS. Bitcoin would undoubtedly destroy projects like Folding@home in terms of integers/second, but how can you conclude that it's the fastest computing project based on a FLOPS-to-FLOPS measurement when Bitcoin's number is converted and everyone else's isn't? Thanks again for the links though, I'll have to study them further. Jessemv (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I just uncommented Bitcoin/Namecoin for you. Still not convinced they are actually DC projects nor that Bitcoin truly does an FLOPS. Jessemv (talk) 17:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Glad you enjoyed the info about bitcoin - not sure if it will be bitcoin but cryptocurrencies will sure play a big role in the future.

By the definition you gave for a dcn I could not imagine much fitting it better than bitcoin: all the work from all the computers is connected in an endless chain. an infinitely complex problem if you like. I could not find anything in the rules about the purpose of the dcn... still there is more that can be done with the blockchain like timestamping. Also the distributed dns system namecoin is merged into and backed by the bitcoin blockchain now. surely there will come more projects doing crazy things with the chain. I never said Bitcoin would do any flops. But who said the fastest dcn has to be measured in flops? theoretically the software could be changed so it would calculate flops and be 10 times or so faster than folding@home. At the moment most hashing is done on GPUs just like folding. So if there are two cars, one driver only wants to drive on the interstate and the other one only on the country road. the interstate guy could go faster on both roads - but he never drives the country road. who has the fastest car? As you pointed out the conversion to flops is only meant for comparison. Thanks for putting bitcoin back on the list. It is a great project with tons of potential. What about a compromise like this: Bitcoin is the fastest dcn in the world (though it actually only does IntOPs). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.229.31.122 (talk) 19:21, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

In a nutshell, don't distributed computing projects need an overarching computational goal that they are after? Folding@home focuses on simulations of protein folding, Rosetta@home does protein structure prediction, ABC@home tries to computationally prove the ABC conjecture, etc. Doesn't Bitcoin use hashes and whatnot for managing its transactions and things like that? While computations are key to its program and it is a large network of computers doing computing, AFAIK it doesn't have a computational goal that it is pursuing. Every other DC project has one. That's basically my point. I think it has a higher chance of falling under grid computing, idk, but even then I think it's a stretch. However, making a note about IntOPs is a good idea though. Jessemv (talk) 20:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

hmm, I don't know what the definition is for wikipedia. but the bitcoin network has an overarching computational goal probably much more in the meaning of these words than all the other dcn: all nodes are working on the very same problem all the time. one finds the solution and all go on to the next problem. I assume the other networks work somewhat more parallel? of course on a meta-level all this is done to be able to write something down without anybody being able to modify or delete it (the opposite of wikipedia - lol). is this what you are looking for? then the computational goal is to continue the blockchain. I don't see much of a difference to calculating a reasonable protein fold. On the other hand: folding@home calculates completely different proteins in a row - where is the connection in between the proteins? It is just a row of unconnected problems. In that sense the folding network exists only for short periods of time whereas all bitcoin work is connected towards one single goal.

How should we go on to convince wikipedia folks of bitcoin performance? Verifyable calculation available - check. Reference from well known institute - check. What more? Reputation? Time? The point is I just can't stand the falsehood of folding@home being called the most powerful dcn in general any more just because it is supported by scientists and stuff while bitcoin is many times faster. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.229.31.122 (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

All right. For the record, sometimes there's only a few proteins being simulated on Folding@home, and other times there are hundreds or thousands, depending on varying scientific needs and priorities. Each computer's Work Unit is a timestep in each protein's overall simulation, and another computer picks up where that WU left off. This makes F@h one of the interconnected projects out there, and also its WUs are also pretty time-critical. I was just saying that in most distributed computing projects, a complex problem is divided among all the available computational nodes, and then the result of those computations is combined and some conclusion drawn. If the goal is to "continue the blockchain" than that's kind of like continuing a simulation. Fair enough. I'll go add it to the table, and if anyone has a problem with it they should raise it here. I sure appreciate the time you took to explain things to me. Jessemv (talk) 05:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

My pleasure :) I realize bitcoin is hard to categorize because it somewhat extends the concept of dc in comparison to most of the other networks. Phelix77 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC).

Yes indeed it is difficult to categorize. Perhaps we should study more and further decide whether it falls under grid computing or distributed computing? I've already provided a useful reference for comparing definitions, but Google is always there as well. Also, you'll see that I made a note about Bitcoin's hashes. You seem to be as familiar with Bitcoin as I am with Folding@home, so if it's not too much trouble could you assist me in filling out the rest of Bitcoin's entries in the table? Currently it's Home and Number of Active Processing Units are missing because I didn't know where to find that information or how to interpret some of the info on the lefthand side of bitcoinwatch.com. Jessemv (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Noticed that there was some info added to Bitcoin's entry in the table. Is Bitcoin run by private individuals or is there any organization/university backing it? That's what the "Home" column means. Is there some way to figure out the number of Bitcoin clients? "Several thousand" is pretty rough and I have no idea where that number came from. Jessemv (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Related Projects

So I just did some quick and dirty organization of the "Other Projects" section, which I renamed to "Other Distributed Computing Projects". Basically I at-a-glance separated the distributed computing projects from other projects like Bitcoin, and put all the other non-distributed computing projects in a section called Related Projects. Now, I haven't checked the references, so there might be some distributed computing projects in that section, but it's not obvious that that's the case from the current text. This article is about distributed computing. My interpretation is that this is supposed to list all projects which use volunteered computers to do a massive amount of processing on a common goal. Folding@home is undoubtedly an example of this, and things like it are what I think of when I think of "distributed computing". I get the term "grid computing" mixed up with "distributed computing", only because "distributed computing" is such a popular term. But there are currently things like Bitcoin and "an open source programmable Java distributed computing system" in the list under Related Projects. These are not distributed computing projects because that is not their focus. Therefore, many of the projects under this section should probably be removed. However I'm afraid to do so without some kind of consensus or feedback, and it's valuable information that belongs somewhere. What do you guys think? Jessemv (talk) 00:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Did some cleanup and rearragments. Most notably I just made a sublist of grid computing, even though from what I've read distributed computing is a subset of grid computing, but I think the name is clearer this way. There are now a bunch of miscellaneous projects commented out between the end of "Grid Computing Infrastructure" and "Physical infrastructure projects". I need some help with sorting out where these go. Seems a shame to just delete them on the spot, so I need some other opinions. Those that have working wikilinks could go under "See Also". Thanks. Jessemv (talk) 21:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

looks good. world community grid just uses 'grid' in its name, it is actually distributed computing for home users too.Clarksmom (talk) 04:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I have to admit that I'm a little shaky as to the real difference between distributed computing and grid computing, and I just went with the definition that I found and added as a citation into the article. Consequently I trusted that those who made projects with names such as "World Community Grid", "PrimeGrid", etc know what they are talking about when naming their project a particular way. I'd be happy to move WCG if you think it actually falls under the DC project instead. Are the other projects under Grid Computing fine? Jessemv (talk) 05:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

abc@home goal dubious

Where does the statement that their goal is "to prove the abc conjecture" come from? I doubt that the collected data from the project could be used directly to prove the conjecture, so I tagged that statement in the table as dubious. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 19:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Check out the citation to their homepage: http://abcathome.com/, which says "If it is proven to be true, a lot of other open problems can be answered directly from it." in the opening paragraph. They don't come right out and say "We are working on proving the ABC conjecture" but given the placement of that statement on their page, and the "why should I join" paragraph, it seems pretty clear. • Jesse V.^(talk) 21:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

My point is that I don't see how it would be possible to prove the abc conjecture via brute-force. One has to show that there is no ε > 0 for which there exist infinitely many triples (a, b, c) with a + b = c such that c > rad(abc)^{1 + ε}. Since abc@home cannot prove that such an ε never occurs, I do not see how the project could prove the abc conjecture. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 07:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The column titled Research Focus in this article currently says "Prove the abc conjecture". First, as I said I doubt this is possible using only the data collected by the project and second, as you said, the project page doesn't actually claim this. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 12:50, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Distributed computing vs grid computing

What criteria are being applied to classify a project on this page as distributed computing or grid computing? -- Toshio Yamaguchi 06:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

This page looks messy and obscure

I came expecting to see up front a list of active DC projects, and then maybe a list of coming or finished projects. Instead I first run into a section on "computer speeds", and then topics/language that no average reader will understand such as "cycle scavenging infrastructure". Only later do we see what appear to be lists, and not all that clear either. This page is not user friendly.Clarksmom (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

OK I moved a few paragraphs. Still appears out of date and confusing, re "volunteer" etc. Also took out speed descriptions and general software discussion.

When I arrived I found that the 2 separate lists of active and inactive projects which seemed out of date and hard to transfer. Perhaps a better format would be to have a master chart that has a column that can be a binary indicator for ACTIVE or INACTIVE and allow the chart to be sorted accordingly, yet still make it very easy to update the inevitable changes for a novice like me. I believe such an update is possible but I fear I would be unable to do a good job of it with my current experience level. --DruidDriver (talk) 20:20, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Should be Volunteer Computing (Moved)

Moved to Talk:List of distributed computing projects § Should be Volunteer Computing

 – -- Toshio Yamaguchi 18:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Should be Volunteer Computing

"Distributed computing" is a general term; it includes all forms of computing with network-connect computers (usually geographically distributed; e.g. cluster computing is not considered distributed computing). "Volunteer computing" is a type of distributed computing where the computers are home computers (or other consumer products). "Grid computing" is a type of distributed computing where the computers are owned by organizations (e.g. universities) that share them with other organizations. I do this stuff for a living; this is the terminology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rare4 (talk • contribs) 16:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Ya, we heard you the first time. This should be merged with his/her original comment. And it's not the universally accepted term even if it's the correct term. Besides, most @home projects are mixtures of home users, large organizations, and the primary organization all contributing resources. What's that called? ;) 7im (talk) 20:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The upcoming abd active project list needs to be updated

Some projects mave moved from alpha phase to beta, some - from beta to active (i.e. uFluids). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.175.110.3 (talk) 08:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

checking back on a few things - bitcoin etc.

bitcoin seems to be a payment system rather than a volunteer computing project; i think i read about it in some police news.

i was looking at the list and thinking people might want to first know what the project is about. in other words, rather than alpabetical order, the primary divisions could be by subject matter (medicine/biology, chemistry/physics, astronomy/aliens, environment etc.)

on the sites that have multiple projects, perhaps each project could be in one of the above divisions. Clarksmom (talk) 03:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

An interesting suggestion. See the discussions above relating to Bitcoin. I might come back to this page and apply that categorization, but right now I'm focused on passing the Good Article review for Folding@home. I'm fairly confident that it'll become the second article about a distributed computing project to achieve Good Article status, after Rosetta@home did back in 2008. Maybe some other editor will apply these changes for you before I come back and focus on this page again. Jesse V. (talk) 05:50, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I added list of cryptocurrencies as 'See also'. 89.79.229.120 (talk) 21:27, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

distributed.net

distributed.net is not a private project; it is run by a non-profit corporation (501)(c)(3) registered for the purpose of public distributed computing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.64.121.194 (talk) 07:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Add Open Source Column?

Open source or not is a common question for software. This feature is important to some. Would it be helpful to add such a column? 7im (talk) 21:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's important indeed. But I think it would be better if we add a License(Type) Column directly instead. That way it will be easy for anyone to see if the project is FLOSS or not. (Mokavey (talk) 22:44, 23 November 2014 (UTC))

Keep inactive projects in the list?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to split inactive projects into a separate section. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 23:51, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

---

There is an ever-growing number of inactive projects (zero users, zero processing power) in the table. Should they be kept as is, forked into a table of inactive projects (and the main table labeled "Active projects"), or just deleted? My concern is that, as projects come and go, any attempt at a project graveyard will clutter up the article more and more over time. This article has a history of being messy and disorganized as is, and I'm not sure how much people care about inactive projects. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 05:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete: Hello! Similar list-style articles usually allow only separate articles as entries; that way, lists are automatically trimmed down to contain only notable-enough entries. Following that principle, I'd say that inactive projects with no articles may be freely deleted from the list, as it's quite unlikely that someone is going to create articles for them. At the same time, I'm not sure whether the list should be pruned further so the only entries are already existing articles; that might be some kind of a phase two performed later. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:21, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I've pruned this article in the past and would be glad to remove inactive entries or even entries with no linked article if that's what we decide to do. That said, I'll wait another week for other votes to trickle in. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 20:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete: I'd vote to remove completed projects, but not to remove those that don't yet have articles. Some projects, such as Mapping Cancer Markers, are recent but moving along rapidly and not particularly large, so they might be finished before an article is created. I think it is useful to have that kind of project in the list while they are active, though, to give an impression of what is happening. Are there good external lists of completed projects, or would it be useful to fork such a list off from here? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

But, if such projects move so fast and reach their ends before articles are created, they'll also quickly fall into the category of completed projects with no articles – if you agree. With that in mind, there would be quite limited use of including such projects into the list. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Split: What is the title of this WIKI article? "list of DC projects" Just because a DC project ends does not mean that project is no longer a project. Move the inactive projects to another table, or split this article in to two, active / inactive projects. The second one being very easy to maintain. And whatever you decide, don't forget to add Genome@home to the inactive table/article (if you keep the inactives). ;) 7im (talk) 18:43, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
• Split: Inactive projects may be of historical interest (for example, AQUA@home from D-Wave Systems, a volunteer project by a for-profit company involving quantum computing). I'd put inactive projects in a separate section.

Also: this page should be called Volunteer Computing Projects. "Distributed computing" is an umbrella term that encompasses Grids, Clouds, and many other things. The "grid computing projects" list should be merged. These are volunteer computing projects with "grid" in their name. "Grid computing" is the use of distributed organizational resources (i.e. computers owned by universities and companies - not home computers). The "Grid computing infrastructure" section doesn't belong here (and it omits the most widely used grid systems like Condor, Globus, and g-Lite). Rare4 (talk) 21:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Please be mindful not to hijack threads with other concerns. You have brought up that suggestion several times before, to no avail. So please don't use the thread I started as another soapbox. Otherwise, thank you for your vote. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 22:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

• Split: Maybe not many people are interested in inactive projects but still they exist. I think that list-class Wikipedia articles are a great place for checking this and that. So the wisest thing to do is just to make two tables (in two sections) - "Active" and "Inactive". If necessary (for ease and clarity) the whole article can be split but I cannot see such a need now. Mokavey (talk) 22:20, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
• Split: I'm not sure if I can vote on my own proposal, but in this case the above comments have caused me to change my mind. I now feel that all Wikipedia articles about distributed computing projects should be linked from this list. If a project ends, but the Wikipedia article is kept, then said project deserves mention here as well. As to whether projects without articles deserve to be listed here, that's a separate topic of discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

 Done – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 02:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Docking@home should be moved to Inactive Projects

It shut down in May of 2014. (See the Wikipedia entry on Docking@Home) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.56.127 (talk) 12:05, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Distributed vs. Grid Computing Projects

I think the labels of "Distributed" and "Grid" computing projects are too similar, and having two separate lists is rather confusing... What is the spirit of having the list separated? From my experience with the projects, I see that the "Grid" projects are typically ones that conduct multiple research projects or "subprojects" such as World Community Grid. However, there are still a few of those (such as yoyo@home) that are in the "Distributed" list. Despite the technical distinction, would calling them "Umbrella" projects be more useful and/or user friendly? If the consensus is to keep them separated, would it make more sense to have sub-items giving details on each subproject?

In general, this page is really long and a bit intimidating; perhaps the three sections should each get their own page?Noderaser (talk) 04:38, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

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