Is folding based on BOINC? [No. FAH came first.]

[socceronly]

I thought folding was not compatible with BOINC. On the website it says they stopped development on it 2006.

In the wiki on super computing, it says Folding is based on BOINC.

Just curious.

[Jesse_V]

What wiki is that? F@h is not based on BOINC. In addition to that F@h page you found, the publication "Folding@home: Lessons From Eight Years of Volunteer Distributed Computing" also has information as to why F@h is not using BOINC. One particular relevant statement says "The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) now used by SETI@home and many others, launched in 2002. BOINC provides a standard client, sever, and statistics system, but with this fixed architecture comes limitations on the types of projects it can accommodate."

Certain portions of F@h code are closed-source for security and data integrity reasons, so that may have also influenced the BOINC incompatibility.

[Stonecold]

Well, maybe it's based on BOINC in that they're both used in distributed computing, but FAH doesn't use any (as far as I know) of BOINC's software.

[jts5009]

FAH is not based off of BOINC. I just edited the Wiki myself to reflect this, but anyone with a bit more knowledge on it can make the edits at the link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercompu ... approaches

[verlyol]

jesse_v is right, F@h has a piece of code not open for reasons of safety and accuracy of scientific results.

But it is true at one time there was a project of access to F@h with the BOINC client.

[Ivoshiee]

At the time there was a BOINC wrapper around FAH COSM client. Basically it was just a BOINC interfacing library around normal FAH client.
Why it was dropped? There were no official statements about the reasons, it turned out that at some point the BOINC developer left the Pande Group and BOINC server went offline. That was it, rest is history.

[Jesse_V]

Here's some interesting info.
Folding@home is listed on the BOINC stats page: http://boincstats.com/stats/project_gra ... pr=folding
CPU breakdown: http://boincstats.com/stats/host_stats. ... lding&st=0
Country breakdown: http://boincstats.com/stats/country_sta ... lding&st=0

[7im]

F@h was up and running long before the boinc framework started. It would therefore be impossible for fah to be based on boinc when fah came first.

[Anglik666]

This project is no longer active. Stats are 'frozen' on the day of the last update.

Last update August 2005.... They are there but not active...

[socceronly]

It was this wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer

Thank goodness for the history, I went back to check it and saw it was changed. Thought I was going crazy.

[sortofageek]

One particular relevant statement says "The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) now used by SETI@home and many others, launched in 2002. BOINC provides a standard client, server, and statistics system, but with this fixed architecture comes limitations on the types of projects it can accommodate."

In my memory of the period of time where a frenzy was occurring over BOINC in certain DC communities, that statement rings a bell and it summarizes what I remember hearing at the time. My conclusion back then was that the BOINC wrapper made distributing computing easier for some projects, but that it would actually limit and hold Folding@Home progress back if it were adopted. That is, of course, an over simplistic statement. I was looking hard at discussions back then and made my choice to focus on Folding@Home out of my understanding of those, not because it is easier but because it gives me more hope for the future.

An attempt to compare BOINC with Folding@Home is pointless. It's an attempt to compare an overcoat to a human being. (Yes, I made that up because apples to oranges just didn't seem to fit here.)

In regard to the initial question, "Is folding based on BOINC?", overcoat to human being works for me. No matter what one might believe about how humans came into existence, I think most of us can agree our design is not based on an overcoat.

[7im]

It made no sense comparing fah to boinc, especially not in that paragraph, so I removed it. I also added a link to distributed computing projects, so people understood what F@h was, and it helps the article flow better in to the next paragraph about boinc.