Is it time to think about the unthinkable for WCG??

I believe it is. Despite the gallant hard work of everyone involved in the WCG move since the beginning, the frequent system issues and lack of resources (human, technical, and monetary) have led me to think the unthinkable and propose that the WCG be moved to some other sponsor with the resources to run WCG without the giant mess it has become.

Pointers:
1. Krembil is ZERO help with WCG. They somehow got their name plastered all over WCG, but provider ZERO support of any type to fix the problems and get WCG stable and functioning long-term. How did they get their name in lights without contributing anything?? Who at Krembil approved this arrangement? Does their Board of Directors or equivalent even know about the "sham sponsorship"??

2. The technical nightmare: Somehow Dr. J. is dealing with UHN, Sharcnet, and I think some other org to cobble together the "back end" to run WCG. In short, it is a technical nightmare. The latest "virtual hard drive" disaster indicates there's not enough physical hardware to do the work, so somebody created a VHD on some other hardware that also apparently isn't able to handle the job, and finally crashed and burned. And this isn't the first time that between UHN and Sharcnet systems have failed, with the usual results. The attempt to re-create IBM's well-funded and well-staffed WCG on a shoestring budget has failed. There is no way to sugarcoat this point. The new WCG has been, and is, a technological failure.

3. The personnel problem: Dr. J. is also dealing with a shoestring staff that has drowned in trying to keep the impossible running long enough to contribute to science. There is no 24/7/365 tech support for the project itself; if it goes down on Friday after 5pm it's down until at least Monday. (Yes, the joke "WHICH Monday?" seen on the forum also applies). With no resources there's no way to expedite investigation, repair, and recovery. There is not enough staff to communicate promptly with the volunteers running work units when something happens, and many times the communiques are days late. Nor is there sufficient staff to handle the myriad of user inquires/bug reports, etc. The old saying "this is no way to run a railroad" applies. And no matter how dedicated the WCG team itself is, they can't do it alone, and do not have control over a number of their technology assets; they are apparently run by UHN and Sharcnet, which leaves WCG at other organization's mercy.

4. The money problem: Dr. J. has rightly pointed out the lack of funding as a serious obstacle to achieving a stably-functioning WCG. The money issue also drives the tech and staffing issues. Despite efforts to secure grants from a variety of sources, and donations from users, the continued dearth of money dooms WCG to a "slow but quick death", as continued system issues drive away volunteers, slow recruitment of new volunteers (I cannot ethically recruit volunteers to the WCG in its current state), until the Death Spiral quickly becomes irreversible. Pure science as a whole lacks the research money, and apparently none of the world's billionaires want to splash their name across WCG for some reason.

The only answers I can see to keep WCG alive is to consider moving it to a new corporate sponsor (hey Intel, AMD, Apple, Microsoft, etc.!), or get some major university in Canada (one or more of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities??) to run or host it and fund it as part of their research programs. Maybe some combination of corporate financial support and private hosting is the ultimate answer. Maybe Health Canada can be consulted as to some kind of partnership.

But where WCG stands now is untenable, no matter how hard everyone has worked so far to try keeping WCG alive. And time is running out.