Re: intent of package seti@home
>>
>> I suspect the real reason is that the code is such a 'secret', is that
>> people may find more compelling uses of their own for all those spare
>> cycles ...
>
> That's not completly fair. Distributed.net has released the core code for
> their client, they just haven't released their networking protocols.
>
> It's really an interesting problem, and perhaps one of the places where open
> source breaks down - how can you be sure if you release the code that
> someone doesn't fake results? Until someone coms up with a method of
> preventing this type of abuse, I don't expect to see them change their ways.
>
I completely agree. I like free software as much as the next Debian-ite. But
we have to weigh the benefits of the code versus the benefits of using the
software.
It is WAY to easy to do lots of rotten things to the data collection of
Seti@home to allow people access to the algos. Crying shame, but people
already use source code to crack computer systems.
While I wish things were different, some non-free software makes sense. Like
communism, free software depends on the good nature of the people involved.
This is not always something we can depend on.
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