[Gecko_r7]

FYI.

It's a sad day for Seti enthusiasts
Crunch3r has left S@H.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=30606#322928

As anyone who participates in the S@H forum knows, since Enhanced release there has been a lot of internal bickering within the community, between individuals, and much directed towards Berkeley. It's also very disheartening to see the consternation related to Enhanced migration & opt ap development issues cross-over into high expecations and a fundemental lack of appreciation of those individuals who volunteer their time and expertise to innovate, create and test the improvements so many have come to value.

That said, in our forum, we are no less immune to the same issues, differences, confusions and sometimes frustrations, but I am gratified and proud that our forum remains positive, constructive and supportive of our projects, teams, fellow crunchers, testers and developers.
We have a great group!

This is one of those times that reminds us if we've been watching/participating behind the scenes, or just haven't said "thanks" for a while to someone who helps or impacts your experience, to show our appreciation.

As for me, while I'm appreciative of the whole group since we all learn from each other, I want to say "Thanks" to: adream, Tiloprobst, Halimedia, Beadman,BTBlomberg, Knightrider, boog, and Lepetitmartien and anyone I inadvertently missed who's been there to help when I was "stumped".

And, my most since appreciation, respect and gratitude to Alex, Rick, Mikkyo, TMR, and Javalizard who have allowed me to elevate my education, experience, enjoyment and contribution to the project and science. Well done!!!!

[tony.escobar]

Originally Posted by Gecko_r7

It's a sad day for Seti enthusiasts
Crunch3r has left S@H.

Un—f-in'—believable

Nothing like chasing away someone who donated tons of time & effort!

Chrunch3r not only took his entire farm off of SETI (moved it to Einstein), his web site is gone! When you try to go there, it redirects to the SETI home page.

QS

[arkayn]

I guess I was lucky to get the optimized clients for my 2 PC's before the S@H staff pissed him off.

[liebsmaschine]

I just read through most of that thread, but I'm still confused: what exactly happened? Who did what to make him leave the project? Something about the S@H staff, I gathered, but not having been a part of the PC portion of the project, I hadn't been following Crunch3r's apps and that whole saga. Could someone enlighten me?

[BTBlomberg]

Very sad and it appears that the true information regarding Crunch3r's leaving has been deleted by admins there so it is hard to judge how bad it was. Sounds to have been fairly brutal though. Sounds like he was roasted for his version 5.11 SETI app over-claiming credits and he corrected it in version 5.12 (which is the only one I have used as I missed the whole switch until I ran out of WUs). People were saying he was cheating and maybe we did try to play with the credit calculation section of the code, but if he tried to apply ideas from the old client to the new I could see where this would happen since the Points system was so flawed.

Fixing the problem should have been enough, and so early in the new client I would think more optimization would come about, so it's stupid this would happen.

Gecko_r7, thanks for the mention, but I am like you just someone who like SETI and try to make observation and comments on the Mac Optimized clients (esp. for G4 as I am currently stuck with my OLD PowerBook G4 500 and an old iMac G3 333 (48 hour WUs with Enhanced - ha ha!)

Now the SETI@Home forums sound to be in shambles with the switch. SETI said credits crunched would equal out and they did not, not even with optimized clients yet. It should not be all about that but in part it is, points count that their is nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, team vs team, team mate vs. team mate, me vs. the world (ok a bit too much there). And the world runs on competition, without it Microsoft Windows would still suck. Ok, bad example.

The problem is expectations, a less than smooth transition, and people that are loud mouths and expect everything to be given to them for nothing and are ungrateful when they get it.

I never expected this to be a smooth transition and never expected the clients to be optimized right from day one. It takes time and those who can't do need to appreciate those than can and do for us.

People need to keep in mind that on top of all with the enhance client it's not just about the WUs being different, but it's about the computation/algorithms being run against them that makes enhanced so different. They may have some of the old computation in there, but have added several new ones and each are somewhat separate, so optimizing this part may not effect then next, I expect that is why with Alex's client I have seen the last half crunch faster than the first. It takes time, appreciation and patience to get this all optimized.

Thank you, Boog's stab at it and Alex's hard work as well as the past contributors to past versions.

I think I have said too much so I will stop now.

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by BTBlomberg

Very sad and it appears that the true information regarding Crunch3r's leaving has been deleted by admins there so it is hard to judge how bad it was. Sounds to have been fairly brutal though. Sounds like he was roasted for his version 5.11 SETI app over-claiming credits and he corrected it in version 5.12 (which is the only one I have used as I missed the whole switch until I ran out of WUs). People were saying he was cheating and maybe we did try to play with the credit calculation section of the code, but if he tried to apply ideas from the old client to the new I could see where this would happen since the Points system was so flawed.

I read some pretty brutal comments on a few threads a few days ago on the S@H forum over the same subject as you mentioned above. Massive flames in Crunch3r's direction. They also "disappeared" shortly thereafter, by admins I'd assume. He didn't respond at the time, but perhaps found out later, or there was an all new flame war the last couple of days. Those threads were difficult to read last week and the individuals involved were absolutely roasting him, his credibility etc. If anyone was the subject of that kind of malicious treatment, it's understandable why they'd give it up. So unfortunate given his unbelievable dedication and contributions, to the community, individuals, and the science. Absolutely boggles me how the main Seti forum has imploded like this, and mostly it appears over the new credit situation. Unfortunate to see these speed-bumps overshadow the merit of the project...recognizing and validating an ET signal. If Enhanced makes this more likely, Great! Crunch on!

[adream]

hi people

yup, very sad indeed, hopefully once the dust settles the call of the optimisation will get him back !

the deleted forum thread is here : http://calbe.dw70.de/cheating.htm but dont spread it around too much (ie back in the seto forum) as it doesnt have a direct link and will probably disapear too if it get severly hit on..

it was a guy called tony (mmciastro) that started the thread, read it from the bottom, the guy clearly has less to do than even me , as he has collected all sorts of evidence of cheating lol, what a wally !

thanks for the thanks Gecko_r7 but like the above post im just another cruncher amongst millions the real hard work gets put in by the folks at berkely and the optimisers, shame no one gives either parties any sort of gratitude ho hum.... we live in a me me me generation

anyhow this macnn forum is cool as, and i cant see us descending into that sort of nonsense

thanks to everyone involved!

regards

adream

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by Gecko_r7

It's a sad day for Seti enthusiasts
Crunch3r has left S@H.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=30606#322928

People, and crunch no doubt, work hard on these things and over time the stress builds so that when something like this occurs; you don't need it and don't want it, so you walk just to keep sane and releive the pressure.

Reading the thread, my impression is that he must have unbalanced the credit equalizing system through errors in the app.info.xml file while trying to accomodate people using beta and alpha versions, but that is just my impression. BOINC is open source, so it is open to anyone who has the skills to produce an improved version. Computing is a collective endevour.

IMO there is nothing wrong with an equal credits system. The emphasis, as far as credits goes, has to be on speed, you crunch more than the other guys. Any optimization that lets you do that has to be on the spot accurate so as to validate. Speed and accuracy, I didn't notice much recognition of that in the thread.

K.

[Todd Madson]

Sadly sounds like the efforts of a small (but vocal) group of ungrateful types.

Well, if they wanted him to stop it worked.

Too bad.

[arkayn]

Looks like that link has already been deleted from his site and his main page now redirects to einstein@home

[BTBlomberg]

This thread is starting to look like a collection of all those that follow the Mac optimized client development.

I guess we are the ones that appreciate the loss.

I read over at the SETI forums and have see at other sites like Trux, about Crunch3r and Trux spending a lot of money on buying specalized Intel Compiler Packages to add the boost just in Processor Specific Optimization, that SETI@Home could not afford to do. Just there says a lot. Sure they may have take donations to do so, but if they have the skill it's worth the contibution. I would think the guys a Berkley could get an EDU discount anyway.

Yes he redirected the site away much earlier today, but must have seen all the traffic and pulled that page.

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by BTBlomberg

I read over at the SETI forums and have see at other sites like Trux, about Crunch3r and Trux spending a lot of money on buying specalized Intel Compiler Packages to add the boost just in Processor Specific Optimization, that SETI@Home could not afford to do. Just there says a lot.

At this point, I feel like my PPC is crunching the opt aps on borrowed time since Apple is now x86. PPC as a % of Seti participation is so,so small that I fear much sooner than later, a future Berkeley upgrade/major release will only be compat. for OS X x86 platforms. It just won't make sense for anyone to write/adapt code for old apple CPU platform. Core Duo 2 (Conroe) appears to be hellishly fast based on early reviews, and (big) IF Mr. Jobs has a Quad core version of THIS coming to replace our beloved Quad G5 (all kneel and bow...LOL), Apple could have exclusivity in representing Premium performance x86. I'm just thinking out loud and there is so much anticipation/speculation in other threads that if printed, it would take a forest of trees to make enough paper. BUT....you can only imagine the passion for Opt Aps that would ensue to exploit the virtues of Core Duo 2's new microarchitecture. FYI, for some fascinating and exciting reading:

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cf...WT030906143144

My point is when this bad boy comes, and heaven help us if we get a Quad option, I have a feeling we'll be searching the sofa cushions to help donate and get Alex the latest Intel compiler Quad dreams aside, even the cheapest into models should be stupid fast when optimized. The times are a changin........
Good night all.

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by BTBlomberg

I read over at the SETI forums and have see at other sites like Trux, about Crunch3r and Trux spending a lot of money on buying specalized Intel Compiler Packages to add the boost just in Processor Specific Optimization, that SETI@Home could not afford to do. Just there says a lot. Sure they may have take donations to do so, but if they have the skill it's worth the contibution. I would think the guys a Berkley could get an EDU discount anyway.

It's any ones choice of course, to buy; but there are a variety of open source compilers out there, even Intel have put some out.

A google search under 'Intel open source compilers' and 'Apple open source compilers' shows what's available. http://www.g95.org/ has a Fortran compiler.

K.

[TiloProbst]

in the planet3dnow forums (german language) Crunch3r mentioned 2 reasons for him to leave:

- the official seti_enhanced client comes with a lot of problems, and Crunch3r just sent Eric Korpela a version of his crunchers without those issues .. but unfortunately his fixes never made it into the official releases

- a lot of people that Crunch3r says have no idea of the credit calculation mechanisms, accused him of cheating, using his clients to achieve more credit for himself

for that last point there has been a thread in the official s@h forums, where a lot of postings got deleted later. but Crunch3r made a backup copy of that thread: http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...ighlight=cheat (backupped on crunchers webspace, currently offline)

looking at the Crunch3r Good Bye thread at planet3dnow things sum up to the total ignorance of the s@h staff for Crunch3r's work, plus the censorship in the s@h forums. he also mentiones that he prepares to call off a strike, where the major Seti teams would intentionally stop contributing work for a few days.
here is the link: http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...d.php?t=269950 and http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...d.php?t=269955.

also look here:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d.php?id=31447
http://forums.teamphoenixrising.net/...919#post337919
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...87#post7184287
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=30606#324245
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=30606#324518
.. and of course: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=31485#324608 <- !

[tony.escobar]

Originally Posted by Gecko_r7

I read some pretty brutal comments on a few threads a few days ago on the S@H forum over the same subject as you mentioned above. Massive flames in Crunch3r's direction. They also "disappeared" shortly thereafter, by admins I'd assume. He didn't respond at the time, but perhaps found out later, or there was an all new flame war the last couple of days. Those threads were difficult to read last week and the individuals involved were absolutely roasting him, his credibility etc. If anyone was the subject of that kind of malicious treatment, it's understandable why they'd give it up. So unfortunate given his unbelievable dedication and contributions, to the community, individuals, and the science. Absolutely boggles me how the main Seti forum has imploded like this, and mostly it appears over the new credit situation. Unfortunate to see these speed-bumps overshadow the merit of the project...recognizing and validating an ET signal. If Enhanced makes this more likely, Great! Crunch on!

The deleted thread has been copied into a new thread called Crunch3r Conspiracy. You can read through that mess (start at the bottom of the first message), then work your through the rest of the flameage.

QS

[beadman]

Gecko_r7:
Thanks for the mention, but I really don't deserve any accolades - just parroting some info I had picked up. The people who really deserve the thanks are Alex, Rick, and Boog for taking their time to help the projects calculate science data faster.

BTBlomberg:
I'm glad to see someone else with the iMac G3 333Mhz still crunching. Mine continues to (slowly) churn out the work units, as well. I stopped computing Einstein on it a year or so ago as it was taking a r e a l l y long time to crunch. Just saw the thread on an improved cruncher that even helps G3s with Einstein at http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=4242 My first Einstein WU with this client is almost done - 18 hours and 97.53 % complete, which is a HUGE speed up on the G3.

beadman

[sdubz]

Originally Posted by beadman

Gecko_r7:
Thanks for the mention, but I really don't deserve any accolades - just parroting some info I had picked up. The people who really deserve the thanks are Alex, Rick, and Boog for taking their time to help the projects calculate science data faster.

beadman

I would like to thank you guys for mentioning me too, but all I did was compile the stock seti/boinc source with agressive compiler options, I don't have the knowledge of Rick and Alex (who really need the thanks ) to be able to change the code.

Myself and members of my team (Team Starfire), tried to go over to the seti forums and get some logic started, but it does not seem to work.

It seems like a bunch of kids trying to be politicians.

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by beadman

Gecko_r7:
Thanks for the mention, but I really don't deserve any accolades - just parroting some info I had picked up. The people who really deserve the thanks are Alex, Rick, and Boog for taking their time to help the projects calculate science data faster.

Goes for me to.

K.

[Todd Madson]

Gads. Now it looks like people are sending e-mail viruses to crunch3r and on
his website he has two links to the code e-mails he sent to the Seti people who
denied receiving them.

[Todd Madson]

Update: looks like Erik Korpela's spam filter trashed Crunh3r's message before it
got to Erik. At Crunch3r's old site he's got his source code and instructions.

[tony.escobar]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Update: looks like Erik Korpela's spam filter trashed Crunh3r's message before it
got to Erik. At Crunch3r's old site he's got his source code and instructions.

I like the recently added "Research Ethics Violation" thread, posted by one Dr. Scott Brown. Dr. Brown asserts that Eric's behavior toward project participants violates NSF ethical standards (I think it's specifically in reference to when Eric said that it was "a bald-faced lie" that Crunch3r had tried to contact him). Apparently, Dr. Brown has already filed a report with NSF and will be sending a letter to Dr. Anderson.

When the forums come back today (after the scheduled outage), have a look through that thread as well as "Strike Requests," which lists the grievances against the project, moderators, and certain forum members.

QS

[liebsmaschine]

Originally Posted by QSilver

I like the recently added "Research Ethics Violation" thread, posted by one Dr. Scott Brown. Dr. Brown asserts that Eric's behavior toward project participants violates NSF ethical standards (I think it's specifically in reference to when Eric said that it was "a bald-faced lie" that Crunch3r had tried to contact him). Apparently, Dr. Brown has already filed a report with NSF and will be sending a letter to Dr. Anderson.

No kidding--they've already deleted/hidden the thread:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d.php?id=31634 -- "Unable to handle request. This thread has been hidden for administrative purposes."

You can see Scott's posts here: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...hp?userid=9789

This is getting too messy. While everything I've heard about this has all been secondhand (and I'm still not clear on exactly who did what), it angers me that there could possibly be so much division over an honest mistake in a project that relies so heavily on the goodwill of volunteers. Part of me hopes that Scott's complaint goes somewhere and results in some strong action...

[Gecko_r7]

FYI,

Crunch3r has removed source code for his aps from his site and also asked the people remove his applications from their computer as he no longer gives consent for use.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=31655#329877

Whether or not this is valid based upon terms of GPL license is the subject of substantial debate presently. Morally/ethically each will have to decide on their own.

The arguement has now gone nuclear, there are no winners.
Everyone who has ever benefited from his work looses.

Side note: TMR appears to have pulled the plug on Seti as well. Hopefully, Hans Dorn won't go.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum...d=31655#329949

The implosion continues.......

[arkayn]

I am going to assume that the GPL is still in affect and keep running the software. Most likely someone has downloaded the source code and could post it if needed.

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by arkayn

I am going to assume that the GPL is still in affect and keep running the software. Most likely someone has downloaded the source code and could post it if needed.

I'll be the first to admit I know NOTHING about how the GPL works and requirements, liabilities restrictions etc. Maybe someone in the know can clarify? The concensus by several individuals who appear credible on the subject suggests that people can continue to use it, but may have their own reasons to respect his wishes and abide if they choose. As for me, I'm sticking w/ it unless there is a legitimate legal/contract/agreement reason why I can't. Wait and see.
Frankly I'm so annoyed over how all this escalated, ended w/ the the "innocents be damned....nuke em' " solution and the collateral damage left behind that I'm not feeling too sympathetic towards the destruction that community has wrought upon itself.
Geeze!

[BTBlomberg]

Yah, I think once it's out there it's open for reuse. One could even expand on his source I would thik as everything was needed to be available. Now I have to say that this is childish on Crunch3r's part, although both sides show this aspect so who's to say. I say crunch3r was wronged by a few people, but this has gone way over the top.

I will not give up the client and most will not until something better comes along.

[Knightrider]

For those that are not aware of it, if you open up the BOINC projects folder you can read the text files that accompany the worker.

The one called COPYING contains the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, which as far as I can see is exactly the same as the crunch3r distribution.

The file called EXTRA_NOTE is the same in the first para but a second para is added:-

2) You may NOT patch/edit or modify the binary in any way.
In case you do so, you might be violating COPYRIGHTED parts of the binary generated by Intels Compiler and the IPP Libraries.
(See Intels EULA)

Legal use seems to me to hang on the availability of the source code and the source code is originally from SAH and that is available.

Because of the restriction of para 2 you cannot modify it, even if you had crunch3r's source code, which means that the only source code available to anyone is from SAH.

This also raises the question as to what extent is it the work of crunch3r and the work of the compiler and libraries? + Does note 2 invalidate the GNU under which it is released? or is note 2 invalid of itself?

I think that the effect of note 2 is to revert the source code to sah and given the avaialability of the sah source code and the intention to release the opt under the gnu ( the additional gnu files have been provided ) the work is 'out there' and available from, when they post them, multiple sources.

I therefore see no reason why it cannot continue to be used.

These arguments of course, do not deal with the moral issues which must be a seperate argument, and when it comes down to it, continuing to use it or not is a matter of personal choice.

K.