On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:34:32 GMT, Johan Plane <johan.plane@telia.com>
wrote:

Well, i started with classic in summer of '99, and I do remember the bad
times also. However, the longer the project as a whole is going on the
tougher demands Berkeley will have to meet. What I find disturbing is that
even though the transition from classic to BOINC was done over a
substantial time, the architecture of the new system wasn't made better

>from scratch. Knowing the problems with classic, one would have hoped that

they had learned the lessons and designed a system with a high grade of
redundancy, instead of starting to plan for that now when the system is in
full use. That is a slip that I guess would only be tolerated in academical
environments and any other ad hoc governed businesses. Technical strategy
is the keyword missing. The fact that there are many dedicated volounteers
ready to join the choire singing praise contributes to keep the pressure
off their backs. There are those claiming that, since it's volountary, we
cannot ask for or demand anything, just shut up and crunch. I disagree on
that. If I give the science my computertime it's their obligation to
provide me with work. There is no better way to loose enthusiastic
coworkers than to treat them negligent. It would be interesting to know how
many active contributers there really are as opposed to the numbers that
have registred over time, i.e. how many have abandoned the project over
time. Any commercial institution would survey that issue, but I guess that
it's not interesting facts to Berkeley.

These are the stats from www.boincsynergy.com 
Total credit granted:    4,487,652,295 cobblestones 
Total Recent Avg Credit: 18,699,412 cobblestones 
Seems to me quite a few of us are still crunching.
And I do disagree with you when you say it is "their obligation to
provide me with work". I believe it is "their obligation" to do what
is right for the Science, not what is right for us users. Sometimes
the two coincide, sometimes they diverge. In the case of hardware,
they diverge because of money constraints. Believe me when I tell you
Berkelely would LOVE to have as much money as they want!!! Wouldn't we
all! But that is not a possibility, so they make do with what they
have and try and have a plan that has a future with the users and the
Science BOTH being happy. Money can do that MOST! They NEED donations,
personally I think they do it wrong, but it is not my call. I think
they should put the word out that all donations would go towards x
piece of hardware, those that think that piece of hardware is valuable
would donate, those that don't won't. Then move on to the next piece
of hardware. I am sure they do this already, they just don't tell the
users what they are actually buying. And yes I understand that those
on dial-up probably can't afford to buy a new modem on Berkeley's end,
while those of us on cable can afford a new router with no problem.
Those darn total numbers of people in each group keep getting in the
way.