Public distributed computing projects depend upon the willingness of people to admit these projects as guests on their computers. Advancing the goal of these projects requires that as many people be willing to host the project as possible. The better behaved the guest is, the more willing people will be to have the guest stay with them, and the lower the chances that the project will find itself summarily evicted.

Some people are DC enthusiasts who don't really care how high-maintenance a project is - they will do the work themselves to get the project running on their computers. There is probably no way to turn these people off. However, these people are a very small minority.

A far larger group of people is reluctant to permit projects to run on their systems, and can be persuaded to permit it only if the project will not require any special effort on their part. In essence, they want a zero-maintenance situation that they don't even need to think about. Another large and especially juicy group, systems administrators in large organizations with lots of computing power, are also reluctant to permit projects to run on their systems and want assurances of zero--maintenance characteristics. Any project that is seriously interested in maximizing its computing resources, and thereby defeating HIV, defeating cancer, or solving whatever other problem is being attacked, should be deeply concerned with the need to implement the simplest possible, zero-maintenance, user interface.

At this time, it is possible to install BOINC on Windows systems as a service, strategically picking installation options (which are NOT self-explanatory) and then manually deleting the Start Menu folder afterward, in order to arrive at a zero-maintenance "silent" installation - but only if you have first become an expert in BOINC installation. Action item: BOINC needs to get the process of installing a silent client simplified all the way down to an easy-to-perform single click.

At the project level, the main problem is network utilization. Minimizing the possibility of annoying the owner of the client system means that the project needs to implement the smallest possible burden on the user's network resources, and cleverly avoid interfering with the user's daily life. Among other things, this means keeping the run time to download time ratio as high as possible without causing other problems (deadline difficulties, etc), minimizing the size of the project software downloads, and sensing and taking full advantage of unused network capacity while also sensing and backing away from heavily utilized network connections (i.e., waiting for a time when network utilization is low, unless the need to communicate with the project server is truly urgent).

If we ever get to that ideal state in which we truly have a simple, zero-maintenance, click-and-forget client, then the primary problem will become publicity. At present, awareness of distributed client technology is extremely low. Ideally, we want to get into a situation in which computer manufacturers (HP, Dell, etc. etc.) pre-load their computers with a silent BOINC installation - that would reduce the need for publicity, since nearly everyone would be running a distributed computing project without even needing to know that they are doing so.

We are in an early stage of distributed computing technology. I would love to see big headlines and best-selling books about how HIV's murderous ways were halted by World Community Grid technology. FaaH's recent move to eliminate redundant crunching is an important step toward that goal, but many more very important steps remain to be taken.

If you buy a new HP, Dell, etc. computer today, it will automatically come with a large amount of pre-installed software. Nobody explicitly orders any of it - it's just included with the system, and you "authorize" it by virtue of deciding to buy that particular manufacturer's computer (instead of building your own computer). You can uninstall any or all of it if you wish (using Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs).

Why would WCG not want to be part of this pre-installed software group, particularly in view of the huge amount of computing power that would thereby become available?

At present, we do not have the ideal scenario (i.e., preinstalled software). People must currently install the software themselves. Many of these people want and need the simplest, fastest, easiest installation process we can possibly give them, as well as total silence (i.e., DON'T BOTHER ME) and near-total invisibility (the sole exceptions being the presence of BOINC in Start Menu, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs and the presence of a BOINC folder in the Program Files directory).

Regarding pre-installed software, at present the system works as follows: software manufacturers pay $$$ to the computer manufacturer to get them to pre-install their software (typically the pre-installed software is a "trial version" or a limited functionality version - the software manufacturer hopes that people will like the program enough to buy an upgrade). Our angle has to be different: we have to appeal to the manufacturer's desire to be a good corporate citizen by helping to defeat HIV, cancer, etc. at basically no cost to themselves. This is in contrast with other things companies currently do to be good corporate citizens (scholarship programs, etc.) that actually do cost them money.

Regarding registration, my concept of the one-click installation is as follows. You have a Project List that you can multi-select from (the default choice being something like "Pick project(s) for me"), a Project User ID box that you can either fill in or leave blank, and a Project User Password box that you can either fill in or leave blank, and finally there is a single button labeled "Install Silent BOINC Now". There is also either enough built-in technology to automatically detect proxy settings and the like (as Internet Explorer currently does) or enough additional input areas to fully enable Internet communications. For each project, if you specified a User ID and/or Password, BOINC first attempts to connect to the project using that User ID and Password. If that fails, BOINC attempts to enroll you as a new user in that project with that User ID and Password. If that fails as well, then BOINC will generate a new User ID and a new Password and enroll you as a new user in that project with that BOINC-generated identity (which is probably going to be partly based on the machine's CPU ID string). BOINC Manager will then remember whichever User ID and Password was used for that project and provide you with a one-click project Website login capability for future use. Thus, the simplest silent installations will literally involve just a single click on "Install Silent BOINC Now" - BOINC will then do all the rest of the work automatically.

A final note: It is unlikely that every computer manufacturer in the world will, at any given time, include BOINC as preinstalled software. Therefore, there will probably always be some set of users who will still need the one-click "Install Silent BOINC Now" capability.

No, you didn't. Please specify. And BTW, the current registration actually asks for MORE information - WCG requests your email address.

1) WCG doesn't need your email address
2) Nothing prohibits anyone from giving a fake email address
3) Verbiage can be added to the effect that "By clicking here you agree to this licensing agreement <link to text of agreement>
4) BOINC can be managed manually by going to the BOINC folder in Program Files and launching BOINC Manager. However, the point is to design BOINC so well that no management (i.e., user intervention) is ever necessary.
5) The owner controls the machine's Administrator account password, which is the only platform from which BOINC can be installed as a service. Hence, nobody can install BOINC without the owner's approval.
6) Anyone who knows the Administrator password can install a silent, near-invisible BOINC right now. No WCG approval is needed.