Hi BOINC Community,

Two weeks ago, Jord van der Elst ("Ageless" on BOINC and project message boards) and I were asked to join a BOINC Work Group committee which researches how BOINC can be made more user friendly, easier for anyone to set up their own short- or long term project, and for the community to join in on those endeavours. The goal is to get more people to run BOINC, to join in coding all parts that make BOINC (client, manager, web site, forums, projects, etc.), to test everything, to get them to set up their own projects, to make BOINC a future-proof and reliable brand that isn't dependent on any one person in particular.

We do know this is a big order and it won't be solved in a couple of weeks. So we'll work in the background together with some key people from projects/code developers to get things started. Eventually we will need answers from you as well, probably on a lot of things. But we'll start slow with a couple of small questions:

1. If there is anything at all you can change in/withdraw from/add to BOINC, what would that be? While we don't exactly look for enhancements or bug squashing, you may just let out anything you think would put BOINC on the map. For example to add social media inside BOINC Manager, or have certain add-ons integrated into the client (I am making these up, they aren't on the list (yet)).

2. Would you like to contribute to making BOINC better, or program for it, or walk the source code, or do anything to help the project forward? What has held you back thus far?

3. We'd like to get into contact with people who programmed for BOINC, but no longer do. Can you PM me or Jord on this, or contact one of us via email? Especially if you're one of the people in the Volunteer Developers section here.

4. We also like to get into contact with people who now voluntarily program for BOINC. Can you tell us why you decided to work on BOINC, how difficult it was to get into and what we can do to increase your involvement?

With thanks for any answers you have,

Richard Haselgrove
Jord van der Elst

I was a little slow off the mark posting here - I had some vacation time booked before I was invited to join the working group. But we've been busy already, and gathered some useful comments from other projects.

It's not too late - please join them!

Jord has put together this initial progress report.

Hi all,

First I'd like to thank those of you who took the time to post your grievances, feature requests and suggestions. We have quite a list already, but we'd love more. I can tell you that all of what makes it through to the list will be spoken about in detail between the group members and possibly back to you who asked about it.

Just so you know, this work group isn't some low people who were aimlessly waiting around in the lobby of some university, instead as I hinted in some posts already, these people aren't the least in BOINC, they do have something to say. They are senior project scientists and administrators, and other significant contributors.

Meet:
- Christian Beer - Einstein@Home
- David Wallom - Climateprediction.net
- Eric Korpela - Seti@Home
- Kevin Reed - IBM/World Community Grid
- Laurence Field - CERN/LHC
- Tristan Olive - Grid Republic
- David Anderson - BOINC

So yes, we're quite honored in that they asked us to gather around the table to discuss a lot of things about BOINC, and so should you. All the material Richard and I send in is talked about via email/a dedicated website. There's so much to talk about even, that some of it made it impossible for us to do all the Agenda points on the last weekly meetings. :)

Weekly we talk via teleconference with each other, which is really nice as at least that way the others can hear the urgency in my voice on anything I have to say. And that's not all just serious talk, there's a lot of humor passing by as well. Weirdly enough, sometimes these guys sound and act like humans. :-D

With that out of the way, please, continue. Give us a lot more to talk about, to decide upon, to vote on how we should change things. We're proud of you. We're BOINC, resistance is futile. :)

Jord.
Richard.

I would like:
1)more flexible resources allocation(based on objects: CPU cores and GPUs) for each project.
2) proper system of standby projects, with clear indication of to which project(s) needs transfer the resources, initially allocated for the project, which currently has no tasks.
3) no any social media or social networks. If this someone needs, then it should be implemented only by plugin system.