Wayne Brown wrote:

rcdriver <rcdriver22@uknets.co.uknojunk> wrote:

I fully support and agree that areas of science should evolve. however, if 
I am to be some kind of 'beta tester' I'd like to know up front. When the 
Classic Seti server is switched off and the lights are off, the hope is that 
we will all just jump to Boinc, some how I doubt it.

BOINC IS NOT STILL IN BETA!!!!

In my case, I'll probably either switch over to GIMPS or just quit doing
any of this sort of processing altogether once the Classic version is
switched off.  I've had my S@H setup stable for quite a while now, so that
it just cranks along, downloading a handful of WUs into the cache every
now and then, processing them, and sending back the results without me
thinking about it.  WUs may get processed and returned in anywhere from a
few hours to a few weeks after being downloaded, depending on which PCs I
happened to have booted up in which operating systems at any given time.
I sometimes go weeks at a time without even looking at what S@H is doing
because it doesn't need any help from me.  But from what I've seen of
BOINC it doesn't look like it will be nearly as easy to just turn it on
and let it run unattended for long periods.  Besides, I really, really,
don't like the "BOINC" name; it sounds too much like a lame attempt at a
tasteless joke.  So once Classic is over I'll probably drop out for good.

Your not sending back units in Classic "for weeks" is not helping the
Science, they have stated MNAY TIMES that if a unit is not returned in
under 3 or 4 days, no more than 7, it is used to confirm other
results, not as a primary result.
You HAVE been contributing to Classic just not in the way you thought
you were!!!
Science evolves, new ways of doing things are imagined and then
implemented, Boinc is the next step for Seti, Cern, Climate
Prediction, Black Hole research, etc. All of this AND MORE will be
available thru Boinc as it cranks up. Classic is dead and the units we
are crunching for it, yes I do still crunch about 17 or so per day
which is  down from a max of about a hundred a day, are re-crunching
old units to verify the results.
Boinc is not only a new platform for Seti and ALL the other programs
it consolidates everything into one place so new programs can be
brought on-line quickly and easily. For Seti it means that we can
crunch as we have in the past but for new patterns in the old data AND
that searching is configurable ON THE FLY! Meaning that if Berkeley
decides to search for all whatever in the data, we will be searching
for all whatever starting tomorrow. Under Classic EVERYONE had to do
an upgrade or the data was still crunched in the old way. With Boinc
BERKELEY can upgarde the Seti part of it and we are not even involved
in the upgrade. This can be turned off as needed for security issues
for instance, but in most cases it is not a security issue, just a
perceived one.
Boinc has a 2 week time limit on the units sent to each computer,
because each piece of data is not crunched by 10 dozen people, it is
crunched by 3 or 4 people, in the case of a good unit that is returned
within the 2 weeks, and after found to be crunched correctly, we move
on the next piece of data. There is NO NEED to be crunching the SAME
piece of data THE SAME WAY 10 dozen times!!! But we DO  THAT in
Classic!