Xgrid Agent for Unix

mac-diddy writes "Someone on Apple's mailing list for Xgrid, Apple's clustering software, just announced an 'Xgrid agent for Linux and other Unix platforms' available for download. There are still some issues being worked on like large file support, but it does allow you to simply add a Unix node to your existing Xgrid cluster. Just goes to show that when companies embrace open standards and code, the world doesn't fall apart."

Comments

Mixed Company

[jasno]

Somewhat silly, but wouldn't you incur a bit of overhead mixing machines of different endian-ness? I suppose for non-communication intense algorithms this wouldn't be a big deal.

Kinda Cool

[hypermike]

Imagine waking up one day to find your Mac has solved a vexing scientific problem. While the cure to cancer, super-efficient solar power and ending world hunger are a ways off, you can combine your computing resources using Xgrid -- and help usher in a new era of biological breakthroughs, rocket science and advanced models of scientific phenomena.

Everything is better clustered...

So could someone please inform me

[Anonymous Coward]

How the developers actually benefit from OSS. The way I see it is that these people put the time and effort in to make a great product - which they give away for free.

Large corporations then download and use these products to increase productivity, get better results without paying a cent, but possibly making themselves even richer in the process. This isn't a troll, i'm just after an answer. I'm not saying OSS is bad, but i'm curious as to what motivates developers.

Re:So could someone please inform me

[Anonymous Coward]

How the developers actually benefit from OSS. The way I see it is that these people put the time and effort in to make a great product - which they give away for free.

In this case, Apple, the developer of XGrid, is benefiting because in order to use XGrid you have to buy hardware. Apple sells hardware.

Re:So could someone please inform me

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that's not the right way to look at it. The way I see it is that these people put the time and effort into making great tools, not end product. Now they, and everyone else, are free to use those tools to create great products, which they don't give away for free.

The mistake I see in every Microsoft attack on OSS and the great fallacy behind every purchased white-paper that predicts that OSS will destroy the economy is that writing and selling software is only a very small part of the economy! Most of the economy is involved in creating real, tangible things like cars and planes and food, etc, etc. Most of the economy is not involved in endlessly copying and selling the same pattern of bits.

OSS creates tools that promise to improve the creation of many, many things on this planet and improve the prosperity of all. The only ones threatened by this are those that have made a business of monoplizing ideas. Ideas that are so easy to duplicate or recreate that they are deliberately trying to setup and use the force of law to keep people from producing ideas on their own.

OSS is really a "paradigm shift". This phrase has been used so emptily so many times by senseless marketing droids that it has lost impact over the years. But it is here, it is now, and it is unstoppable. How can they stop it? We have the source!

Re:So could someone please inform me

[eamacnaghten]

I am involved in both proprietary and open software.

In the proprietary model the software is becoming worth less and less. 5 years ago run time licenses accounted for over 80% of the income of commercial software provider companies, now you will be lucky to see it account for 40% and it is going down rapidly. The rest being made up of support, training and other services.

However, the cost of producing software is the same, and what is more, it is an upfront cost. You cannot get money for it until after you have paid a programmer to write it.

Open source takes the above to a logical conclusion. As software is becoming relatively worthless (as far as run-time licenses go) you do not lose by giving the software away for free, and if you Open Source it you have available a 90% solution from free software out there before you begin thus cutting down on the production costs.

It is not about "giving stuff away" or people "not paying a cent" to use your software, it is about facilitating an extremely cost effective way for which software companies can provide services to the customer by using open source predecessors, and passing the benefit on to successors.

Re:So could someone please inform me

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when I develop a piece of software (or hire someone to do it for me), I solve one of my problems. That's the benefit. End of story, really.

For instance, I need a special library for an app. And none of the off-the shelf ones exactly match it. So I write it.

Now, I find out that other people have a similar problem. So I think to myself "well, I already got my ROI, so to speak. I solved my problem. So now I'll put this software out as open source and see what happens".

And people use the software in ways I didn't think of. They give suggestions on how it might be better. A few send in patches. Suddenly my solution is an even better solution, at no cost to me.

On the flip side: I download an open source library. It works okay, but there are some bugs and it needs a little refactoring. It will cost $1000 in labor to fix this library, vs. $5000 to write it from scratch. So I do it and send the patch to the author. The author is happy (free patch), I'm happy ($4000 worth of code for free), and I don't have to re-do my fixes in the next version! I sure wish commercial software worked that way.

A lot of folks make it seem that OSS is a bunch of people working for others, for free, like communists or something. Not true .. I write software *to benefit myself only*. I am a capitalist. I fully believe in free markets. I believe people should make as much as they can and get to keep it all. I also believe there's no justification for charging for something that costs nothing to copy, so I don't. It goes against my thinking: the only way something that costs nothing can be charged for is if you have authoritarian government enforcing it (which we do). Charge for service, sure. Charge for installation, sure. Charge for consulting, yup. Charge for the box, the CD, whatever. All of that takes time or materials and I can't "copy" it for the next guy.

Of course, you don't have to explain *how* OSS works. Just look and see that it exists and is self-sustaining, that's enough to prove that *something* about it works!

It Doesn't Show That At All!

[Alphanos]

Just goes to show that when companies embrace open standards and code, the world doesn't fall apart.

Don't get me wrong, I support open standards/code, but it doesn't show any such thing if this linux client has only just been released. I bet Apple, and others for that matter, will be watching sales of Mac machines for use in clusters. If they drop because everyone starts using linux PCs, then Apple will probably not try this again.

Re:It Doesn't Show That At All!

[xchino]

If everyone was going ot be using Linux PC's in their cluster, they would just use one of the existing clustering applications. The only reason anyone would use Xgrid is because they plan on using SOME mac nodes, which is better than none. This could increase sales by opening up Macintosh hardware to projects that couldn't use it before. Due to the cost of a Mac hardware, it is often not feasible to build an all Mac cluster, but if I can throw some G5's in here and there Apple gets some of my money as opposed to none.

Re:I've been dying to know....

[Colol]

Of the applications you've mentioned, only compiling things in Xcode would have any benefit. To utilize Xgrid, the application has to be written for it, which most apps simply aren't (and given turnaround issues, it would be suck for things like Quake and MAME).

Xgrid's main benefit is in "grunt work" calculations that aren't necessarily needed immediately. Things like SETI@Home or Folding@Home would be the sort of thing Xgrid excels at: throw some data out, have it processed, get it back when it's done.

While Apple has made clustering drop-dead easy, it's really not targeted at the home or small-business user, and the potential uses are pretty limited in that field.

great job

[rainman1976]

Good job with the clustering ... as for the pro-Mac users that believe that this should not be, keep in mind that the computer is just a tool to simplify a job. Using a pipe on the base of the wrench to solve a problem easier doesn't mean that Sears Craftsman is now going to start making longer wrenches, it just shows that people will use whatever they have to solve/simplify problems, and if it means clustering in non-Mac computers, then so be it. Job done, cheaper, simplier, and quicker. -Rainman

Re:but....

[javaxman]

what world are *you* living in that hasn't fallen apart over the past few years??

I might like to move there, but I suspect, like some other folks, you've simply stopped following the news...

So, you're saying your PCs are completely problem-free? You don't get tons of spam and haven't heard of major web hosting services DDoSed by zombified Windows users? Huh.

Pretty Interfaces....

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is good at writing pretty, easy to use interfaces over complex to configure things. Many of these complex things are written by people who ASSUME the end user has the same skill set as they do. But as we all know... The average computer users is an IDIOT. The average system administrator is usually no better.

Let's face it, some slash-dotters who don't even work as system administrators know more them.

embracing?

[dekeji]

Xgrid is proprietary, closed-source software. I think that hardly counts as "embracing" open-source software. Many other parts of the Macintosh platform are proprietary and closed source as well.

I'm not disputing that Apple released Darwin source code. But before you start cheering, keep in mind that Darwin started out as open source: the CMU Mach kernel and bits and pieces of BSD. And it's not like Apple made a big sacrifice in releasing a kernel that looks and feels like half a dozen other open source kernels.

Re:embracing?

[DeifieD]

Well... At least they are releasing software for Linux... I don't think Photoshop would be OpenSource either. But Adobe releasing it for Linux would be considered embracing.

Re:embracing?

[CableModemSniper]

And as 30 seconds of thinking will tell you, Xgrid is not Xcode.

Care to try again?

Re:embracing?

[Anonymous Coward]

But before you start cheering, keep in mind that Darwin started out as open source: the CMU Mach kernel and bits and pieces of BSD.

That's a pretty standard response, and it makes me wonder if you've ever actually looked at Darwin. While it is derived from existing open source technology, Apple's additions (for example, IOKit) are far from trivial.

wake up!

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

So, this is an example of those open standards, and the world not falling apart over it?

shall I quote from the download page? yes, yes I shall ...

Quote:

Several notes on compilation:

1. If you use this for anything other than testing, you are insane.
2. The configure script isn't great: it does not check for all compatibility issues and might even fail to run properly without telling you. /Quote

I'll assume that Pudge is just another Michael in disguise, endlessly posting over hyped BS articles that are easily refuted.