On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Nicolás Alvarez <[email protected]> wrote: > I think glut is pretty irrelevant for this discussion. The BOINC > client doesn't use glut. Everything under the 'api' directory is for > project applications to use, which may or may not use glut (they > certainly won't if they don't have any screensaver graphics). Removing > glut or the whole 'api' from the source shouldn't stop you from > compiling the client.
I agree that glut is a minor aspect of the problem. It's not totally irrelevant, though, because the 'api' directory does come with the client, even if it's unnecessary. I heartily approve the prospect of switching to FreeType 2. (I'm not really qualified to comment on whether Mark Kilgore's email is enough to qualify glut as free software, but I note that LibrePlanet says the problem is "unclear licensing", and generally we would require the terms to be distributed with the source code; I don't think Mark updated his sources with a clearer license after writing his email, nor does the email apply to any later revisions of the code.) > > The real problem with a completely free BOINC is project apps. When > you attach to a BOINC project, it downloads compiled binaries from the > project and runs them. They may or may not be free software. The BOINC > client will not tell you of the project app's license before > downloading the binary. If you simply check by other means (eg. the > project website) that a project's app is free software, and attach to > it when convinced, months later you could receive non-free binaries > for a new kind of processing task. Yes, this is indeed a problem. > > A workaround is to download or compile the project app yourself and > use it with BOINC via the "anonymous platform" mechanism. If you do > that, BOINC will not download any executables from the project. If > there is a new kind of task from the project and you don't have that > app, you just won't get that kind of tasks. The LibrePlanet wiki recommends making the client only download white-listed known free project apps. People would still be able to use non-free apps, but the BOINC client would not recommend them (nor silently download them as it currently does) and would require an extra step, either as you suggest above via "anonymous platform", or perhaps just a button confirmation within the client to check the license and confirm the non-free download. Trisquel may be working on providing a white-list (presumably patched) version: https://trisquel.info/en/issues/5658. Obviously it would be even better if that behaviour were eventually implemented upstream. > > The problem is that, as far as I know, there is no way to stop BOINC > from downloading the app when first attaching to a project. I'm not > sure if it's possible/safe to put the anonymous-platform app_info.xml > in the project directory and *then* attaching to the project. Perhaps > we need a cc_config.xml option to make the client run exclusively in > anonymous-platform mode. When first attaching, and as long as there is > no valid app_info.xml, the client would not get any work (since it has > no app_versions). But it could only allow certain projects to be attached to in the first place. > > -- > Nicolás _______________________________________________ boinc_dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ssl.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/boinc_dev To unsubscribe, visit the above URL and (near bottom of page) enter your email address.
