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Re: Does Hebrew U. violate the GPL?





"Stanislav Malyshev a.k.a Frodo" wrote:
> 
> GBY>> that the power that be will not look kindly on releasing to
> GBY>> what amounts to be a strong super computer for everyone to
> GBY>> use. Those of you that attanded the lecture heard that this
> 
> There's Beowulf. And I think that for start nobody in the government
> understands what MOSIX is, and they probably never heard of it. And then
> again, nobody succeeded in stopping progress by such a means - look at
> American crypto restrictions, that hurt Americans more than others, look
> at French government that got a clue and abandoned crypto restrictions
> just because it hurts more than helps.

As Prof. Barak said in the lecture, MOSIX is better then Beowulf because
it operates without the user noticing it; it's fault tolerant, load
balancing etc... Beowulf (cool as it may be) isn't.

And as for "the government ... they probably never heard of it" I
wouldn't bet anything on that.
Every single of them Marinet cards they use costs 1,500$. We still
haven't talked about the cables and
switches OR the computers... remember they have a 100 node cluster!

If this was financed by some commercial body we would have heard about
them already.
Nope, my bet is that MOSIX is a govement funded project. The government
hopes to be able to build a super computer and be able to tell the
Americans to shove their ITAR regulation up their arses...

Mind you, I neither approve or disapprove. I just state my guesses...

> 
> GBY>> stuff is in use in the army. n'uff said...
> 
> So what? They did it as army contractors and signed NDA's you say? And
> again - I understand that's a very BIG STATE SECRET - the source code of
> modules that IDF uses. Especially when it's made in HUJI, when every
> student can potentially get access to the said sources. Don't make me
> laugh.

You're welcome to try get the sources - but don't hold your breath... if
this is supposed to 
be (in the eyes of the government) a route to get a "home made" super
computer, they wont
be very open minded about the source...
NOT because it contains secrets, but rather because it's such a powerful
thing to have.
All other forms of super computers are either very limited or / or
protected by goverments.

<Warning: some funky calulations ahead...>

Consider the following:
The current computer today is rated as having something around 1 mili IQ
unit.
Remember that the aim of MOSIX is to built an INFINITE scalable cluster.
This means that given a 1000 PC's you have a computer with 1 IQ unit.
(ok, there's some overhead,
I'm talking "in the power of" here...)

Interesting isn't it?

Now, What happens with 100,000 computer clusters? and taking into
accounts Moor's law...

OUCH!

Gilad.

 


> --
> frodo@sharat.co.il      \/  There shall be counsels taken
> Stanislav Malyshev      /\  Stronger than Morgul-spells
> phone +972-2-6245112    /\              JRRT LotR.
> http://sharat.co.il/frodo/      whois:!SM8333

-- 
Gilad Ben-Yossef <gby@gtek.co.il>
G.Tek Technologies ltd http://www.gtekil.com
Open Source (TM) Software: Empowerment, Enlightenment, Emancipation.