Hi,

I am a student from the Technical University of Munich. I am working on grid 
computing (Diplomarbeit).


What  is grid computing?

"The grid will connect multiple regional and national 'computing grids' to 
create a universal source of computing power" (Ian Foster). The word 'grid' 
is chosen by analogy with the electric power grid.
Today, companies don't need to build their own dedicated power plants to run 
their buissness, instead they buy electric power from the market. In the same 
way, sientists expect companies not to build dedicated super computers any 
time longer, but to retrieve computing power from the computing grid market.


The idea!

Collect idle cpu cycles from kde users and sell it on the global compute 
market (wich does not exist yet). The collected money will be spent to 
accellerate the development of the user's favorite desktop environment(e.g. 
pay os-developers...).


Posetiv implications:

- Normal kde users would become involved in the development process.
- kde developers would pay more attention on usability, because they get paid 
from the comunity.


Problems:

-Will people donate idle cpu power? I think so, but donating must be kept 
simple, like pressing a button in the kde control- center.

-Will companies buy compute power? A virtual supercomputer has a very poor 
quality in terms of security, reliability, communication-speed... .However, a 
virtual supercomputer is much cheaper than mainfraims or clusters - no 
dedicated hardware and no maintaining(!!). 


Wrong buissnes modells in the past

Some time ago a company called popular power tried to collect idle cpu cycles 
and sell it to companies. Popular power paid money, in order to attract home 
users, but this caused 2 problems: First the money attracted to many 
criminals trying to get money without donating cpu cycles, second popular 
power needed too much advertising and too high payments in order to attract 
home users. However, because venture capetalist spent a lot of money, it 
indicates, there is a real market - popular power had just the wrong buisness 
modell. 


Why the kde community would work:

- Would you care about a monthly check, worth 2.08 Euro from popular power? 
Probably not, but eventually 1 000 000 kde user donating 2.08 Euro a month 
adds up to 25 million Euro a year (50 000 000 DM, 24 000 000 US).  O.K. I 
have exaggerated, but the money could improve something users do care about.
- No money, no crimenals


The technology

A lot of research is done from universities (all open source), some stuff we 
would need does not exist yet, but universities are working on. I don't think 
there is a thechnical problem which cannot be solved. 

The real question is, if you like my idea.


What do you think?


Greetings

Christoph Held
 
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