[Beowulf] Open source and the Draft Report of the Task Force on High Performance Computing

[Bill Broadley]

The URL:
http://energy.gov/seab/downloads/draft-report-task-force-high-performance-computing

One piece I found particularly interesting:

   There has been very little open source that has made its way into broad use
   within the HPC commercial community where great emphasis is placed on
   serviceability and security. There is a better track record in data analytics
   recently with map/reduce as a notable example. This is less of an issue for
   universities or national laboratories but they represent no more than about
   10%-15% of all HPC usage. Of course, one cannot “force” the adoption of open
   source but one should also not plan on it being a panacea to any ecosystem
   shortcoming. A focus investment effort within universities could expand the
   volume of open source and increase the chances that some of the software
   output could become commercialized. It should be noted that the most
   significant consumption of open source software is China and it is also the
   case that the Chinese are rare contributors to open source as well.
   Investments in open source or other policy actions to stimulate creation are
   likely to produce a disproportionate benefit accruing to the Chinese.