Greetings

First of all I'd like to thank the GPUGrid team for pushing the boundaries of molecular dynamics to great new heights these past few years. Although I haven't crunched for GPUGrid (or any BOINC project, for that matter) in a long time, it was my favorite distributed computing project - but now, alas, I was disappointed to learn that the molecular dynamics applications used by GPUGrid are proprietary. Because of this, I can no longer, with good conscience, recommend or return to the GPUGrid project.

It is of my opinion that all software that serves a function ought to be free - not free as in zero price, but free as in freedom - i.e. the source code should be liberated so that it can be peer reviewed and peer assessed. The scientific method itself is based on the concepts of transparency and reproducibility - and I think for a worthy project like GPUGrid, to make its scientific applications a secret, is a real shame.

So I propose a question to the GPUGrid team: why don't you follow the trailblazers of free, liberated scientific software such as the Einstein, SETI and Milkyway @home projects? All of these projects license their science applications under a free software license (e.g the GNU GPL or MIT license).

Scientific progress is hurt when certain tools used to postulate and test new ideas are kept secret. I hope the GPUGrid team will seriously reconsider re-licensing their proprietary applications under a liberal license.

Regards

An old GPUGrid cruncher.

Hi Stefan, thanks for your quick reply.

I understand exactly that you release and publish your results; and I can understand why you would want to use an in-house MD program rather than a third party one.

The only issue I have is regarding the computational application itself - ACEMD. You mentioned that the only reason it isn't open source is because it is being sold by Acellera; but perhaps there is a misunderstanding. There is no need to make a program proprietary if you wish to sell it; free software licenses such as the GPL/MIT licenses protect and guarantee the right for an author to sell his/her program.

And that's what the guys at Milkyway and Einstein have done - the applications themselves are released as free software.

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to use free software instead, say for instance, Gromacs and/or OpenMD?

I look at the work done by you and the GPUGrid team with the utmost admiration and respect, but if the tool - ACEMD - that is used to perform these important computations is kept secret, it hurts the scientific/high performance computing/molecular dynamics community who could study, share, modify and improve the code.

I know it's unlikely that ACEMD will ever be liberated due to the arrangement with Acellera, but I think that if the GPUGrid team liberated it, it would make a huge contribution to the MD community; perhaps as important as the other free software programs Gromacs, AMBER and OpenMD.

Regards

NO..!!GPUGRID is a private project all I calculate is investing in a private Spanish company. ... you are very naive .. I do not get how this project came under the wing boinc ... therefore we will leave nobody, but nobody wants to answer you ..

NO..!!GPUGRID is a private project all I calculate is investing in a private Spanish company. ... you are very naive .. I do not get how this project came under the wing boinc ... therefore we will leave nobody, but nobody wants to answer you ..