(sorry if this is a repost, but I don't think the last one went through...)
------ I am completely suspicious of this United Devices outfit. They have a very spiffy and well-laid-out web site that manages to disclose exactly nothing about the work they are doing, the revenue from which they then donate a small portion to Make-a-Wish or whoever. We don't know if they are factoring primes, running engineering models for oil exploration, working on biotech genome coding or processing law enforcement records. Their privacy page states all kinds of wonderful things about how they won't snoop on your system, but of course their code is closed source and we can't audit it. I don't particularly like the notion that my PC could be used to do the math for the next super-secret high tech weapon or the next miracle drug cure, and I won't know for sure what it is in any event and whether the next project won't maybe have a local system monitoring function built in. Or when the next skr1pt hax0r figures out how to hijack this stuff and use it for distributed attacks. The company has $13 million in venture money from Softbank and has hooked up with Intel and Exodus. This Make-a-Wish tie-in is very nice but what they are really doing is sugar-coating a method of buying processor cycles for nearly free. If they really did this right, they would post a price and make you a deal and make it conditional on source code review and opt-in based on the type of work being done. In other words, a real commercial proposition. And that ain't happening. I just think this is another gasp out of the now-dead dot.com IPO era. [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a great proof of the distributed processing concept, but that was an entirely non-commercial venture with full source code available. These people are just riding on the SETI project's reputation for commercial gain. The CEO is a corporate drone whose background is Dell, Intel and Microsoft. The chief scientist is the top guy from [EMAIL PROTECTED] and a Berkeley professor. The new marketing director is one of the losers who destroyed Deja.com, leaving the wreckage to be picked up by Google. I am sure they are dynamic, driven, well-meaning people, but they are running a commercial concern and their VCs want them to perform. http://www.ud.com/about/press/press_releases/11272000_1.htm http://www.ud.com/about/press/press_releases/03122001.htm http://www.ud.com/about/management.htm I'm all for aiding the fight against cancer or whatever but it seems to me there is a better way than becoming a volunteer for a corporation making money off the effort. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
