[Beowulf] Storage

[Robert G. Brown]

On Fri, 8 Oct 2004, Jan-Frode Myklebust wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 07, 2004 at 07:59:59PM -0400, Robert G. Brown wrote:
> 
> > If it is trivial, and there is a simple package that does all this and
> > eats your meatloaf for you out to a PB of data, please enlighten
> > me...:-)
> 
> Have you had a look at SRB -> http://www.npaci.edu/DICE/SRB/ ? Sounds
> to me like it fullfills all your requirements (except for the
> meatloaf part, but I could be wrong).

Ah, but read:

  http://www.npaci.edu/dice/srb/srbOpenSource.html

where it is clear that the answer to the question "is it GPL-level open
source" (essentially free softare) is "no".  Worse, it is one of those
really evil packages that requires that you contact a University's
"Technology Transfer staff" for anything but carefully prescribed kinds
of usage (by Universities, basically).  This kinds of licensing drives
me somewhat wild, especially since in this particular project we/Duke
(an academic institution) will be partnering with MCNC (a state funded
center) and other area schools and universities.  Oops.  State funded
centers have to dicker for the right to use the toolset.

In spite of its impressive list of projects (and features), this makes
it, as you say, a package that does NOT eat your meatloaf for you.

This is the general idea of the project's data management package tool
as well (and some others folks have pointed out) and I appreciate the
reference.  I just wish that Universities would stop taking software
developed (generally) with generous support from federal and state
grants and putting these silly "we want to make money from this"
licenses.  Just GPL them and do things right...

Condor used to drive me nuts the same way.  SGE ditto. PBS even more so.

<preach>
Tools like this need to be REAL open source, free like air, especially
when it is almost dead certain that they began with all sorts of ideas
and possibly code contributed by a free source community, built on top
of free tools contributed by that community.
</preach>

   rgb

> 
> 
>   -jf
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Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu