Sun Announces $100k Contest for Grid App Developers

C-Shalom writes "EWeek reports that Sun announced a contest where developers can compete for $100k in prizes for developing applications that utilize the Grid. This is in addition to 100 free CPU hours on the Grid. From the article: 'Sun is hosting a competition where developers can compete for $50,000 in prize money. The winners of the Sun Grid Compute Utility Cool Apps Prize for Innovation contest will be determined based on the software they develop on the grid, MacRunnels said. Sun is planning additional contests for later in the year, which will bring the total potential winnings to $100,000.' The press release contains more info not included in the article."

Comments

distributed prize-money

[__aahlyu4518]

"the Sun Grid Compute Utility Cool Apps Prize for Innovation contest"
I think the prize money should go to those few people that can remember the name of that contest.

Re:distributed prize-money

[arnie_apesacrappin]

"the Sun Grid Compute Utility Cool Apps Prize for Innovation contest"

I think the prize money should go to those few people that can remember the name of that contest.

Is this somehow related to the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence?

Re:distributed prize-money

[ironring2006]

Just use a mnemonic for the acronym SGCUCAPI. I propose the following describing the situation of when you get caught "looking" at the men's urinal.

Some Guy C's U C A PenIs!

...Just don't forget to zip up...and wash your dirty, dirty, dirty hands.

$100k

[sirinek]

That's cheaper than hiring even one developer on full time! Wow, Sun knows how to save some money. ;)

Re:$100k

[Overzeetop]

That was exactly what I thought when I read the headline. Why pay for a team to dork about for a couple of months, when you can get the whole world to work for you?

Re:$100k

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cheaper than hiring even one developer on full time! Wow, Sun knows how to save some money. ;)

Hahaha.. yeah.. MANY years ago...

I know guys from India who would make a computer rape and kill you and your co-workers for this money.

Re:$100k

[fistfullast33l]

Actually even better, if you read the contest rules it's not $100k at all. They're giving out a total of $100k. Each contest winner wins $15k. Second place gets $5k. For three months of development at maximum, it's not worth your time. In fact, unless you're doing this in about one man-month, you'd probably be losing money compared to what you'd earn in wages. However, most people who do work on this will be doing it on the side, so this is technically extra money in the bank. Still, unless you have a great idea for a project for this that won't take much time, it's probably not worth the effort to try.

Re:$100k

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no no. Getting people to work for little or nothing is known as an "open source" project.

Re:$100k

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cheaper than hiring even one developer on full time! Wow, Sun knows how to save some money. ;)

They learned from the best.

We have a grid

[Timo_UK]

and no idea what to do with it. Before we all get fired, someone please tell us why we spent all that money, PLEASE!!!

Re:We have a grid

[Fred_A]

Well, all you need now is Natalie Portman!

Oh, wait, grid, never mind...

Re:We have a grid

[digitaldc]

and no idea what to do with it.

I have an idea, hold a $50,000.00 contest to find out what to do with your grid.

Re:We have a grid

[D-Cypell]

We have a grid and no idea what to do with it.

Try putting an X in the center square.

Re:We have a grid

[kalirion]

That sounds kind of familiar.

Re:We have a grid

[Inode Jones]

Challenge!

"X" alone is not a word. Had you attempted "AX", "EX", "XI", "OX" or "XU" through the center square then the play would have been acceptable, but I have to summon the word judge for "X" alone.

Re:We have a grid

[charlesbakerharris]

All I've ever needed is Natalie Portman.

Idle Grid

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

If they've got this powerful cpu farm and it's obviously underutilized, why don't they donate un-rented cycles to something that helps us all (like the Folding@Home project)??? Seems like if they chose some sort of charitable recipient, they could even write the cost off on their corporate tax bill.

Re:Idle Grid

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is to spur development of grid applications, not to give stuff away. The more people with experience of grid applications, and the more grid applications that exist, the more business opportunities Sun have.

Chances are Sun don't need any help with their taxes, they probably already pay as little as possible.

Re:Idle Grid

[xtracto]

But the objective of this things is to "show companies" what they can do with The Grid, they want to profit selling that service but so far just a small number of persons have used it.

The problem is the cost of this services, my University was trying to get some grid time from HP for certain project, the problem was that even though they had a "special arrangement" with HP, and because of that they have "cheap prices" the cost is just TOO expensive. And, This project was not short of money (it is a UK university).

It is (still) cheaper to pay someone to build a grid to use and then you will have it for other things.

Granted, if it was a Corporration they wont want to own and maintain one of this things but nevertheless the price is still too expnensive

Re:Idle Grid

[JPribe]

Idle is right, it must be bad...donate the time to a university research program or something...I know it is still early, but I can't imagine what I would do on their grid anyway...hmmm, can you play BF:2 on it????

Re:Idle Grid

[twiddlingbits]

Cost? At $1/CPU Hour? How many CPU/hrs do you need? The big drawback is that there are not that many applications out there that are "grid aware" and can utilize all the CPUs. Simulations/modeling are great things to do on a grid but if the application/algorithm won't scale to 100's of CPUs then your problem takes longer to solve. Time is money, the sooner you know the answers the quicker you can get them into production and start making your money back. The applications also must be secure, not rely on 3rd party libraries, etc. The rules are published on Sun's web site page that describes the Grid Service.

Re:Idle Grid

[jamesh]

Chances are Sun don't need any help with their taxes, they probably already pay as little as possible.

maybe through ventures like this :)

Re:Idle Grid

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are Sun don't need any help with their taxes, they probably already pay as little as possible.

Given that they haven had any profit in several years... I'm guessing they're paying only property & payroll taxes.

Is Mr Right out there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Young, slim - but growing - Computer Grid seeks Applications. Must have own users and be willing to lose them. Prefer long-term commitment, but willing to accept anything. GSOH absolutely essential.

Our first date will be my first time.

Are you the risk-taker I'm looking for?

Re:Is Mr Right out there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will take you on a date right after they're done with Open Source

"This is a big outreach campaign"

[Dystopian Rebel]

"This is a big outreach campaign for developers," said Hailing MacIntels, senior director of futility computing at Sun.

"We're reaching out and we're saying, 'SAVE US PLEEEEAAASE!'"

Re:"This is a big outreach campaign"

[unboring]

>> senior director of futility computing at Sun

I agree :)

WOW!

[JabrTheHut]

Finally, something big enough to handle world of warcraft....

Re:WOW!

[neersign]

Distributed PS2 emulator. 'Nuff said.

WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, name remembers YOU.

Heh

[gentimjs]

I got dibs on making the sun grid talk too gentoo/distcc !! ;-)

Re:Heh

[squison]

Too bad gentoo would still take 2 days to compile...

Sunsolve.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the best damn resource for Sun tech info

My app

[suv4x4]

My application emulates a huge amount of monkeys on a Grid terminal, writing the winning application.

Now that I've started it, it's only a matter of time, *evil grin* muahahaha.

Re:My app

[CatsupBoy]

Are they... EVIL Monkeys?

A Variant fo the Infinite Monkey Theorem

[gurutc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theor em Have the algorithm try to come up with how any app that needs the Grid to power it is only worth $50K?

Re:Poor old Sun.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"I don't think even $100k of hooker time would generate any interest in their platform."

That depends on if it has Blackjack or not...

NO!SPEC

[Crisses]

This is as bad as all the design contests.

If anyone wants a lot of good reasons not to enter Sun's contest, I suggest reading the design site NO!SPEC. Just replace "Programming" for "Designing", "Designer" for "Programmer" etc. -- and realize the research, planning, time commitment, and post-project support for this "contest" is even worse than that for a logo or website design.

What a *#)#*#)@!{#*$)$(#)#&*#&^$&$)$) waste of time.

Looks like programmers can use to team up with the designers on this one. Start writing no-spec work rants and add them to the list at NO!SPEC.

They should find a person or team capable of this project, and get it done right, for the right money. What is the programmer going to live on during those hundreds of hours programming? Peanuts?

Re:NO!SPEC

[jank1887]

They should find a person or team capable of this project, and get it done right

You're mildly missing the point. They don't know what to do! They're not trolling the waters for competent development. They're trying to hit upon a Killer App(TM) for their underutilized grid. They're paying for creativity and and 'quantity over quality' approach to the problem. They might get lucky. But that's what it comes down to.

Re:NO!SPEC

[gr8_phk]

On the NO!SPEC site, there is a blurb about a guy named Jeff who "donated 5 new posters" to their website devoted to telling people not to work for free. Do you see the irony?

Re:NO!SPEC

[Crisses]

Absolutely!

I see no irony.
1) NO!SPEC didn't dangle a $100 carrot saying "we want 20 people to come up with 5 posters, and we'll reward the winner by posting them"
2) NO!SPEC is not against volunteerism or pro-bono work. It's about companies who want to try before they buy. "Do the work MAYBE we'll pay you" or "Do the work, MAYBE we'll use it"

These companies are sucking up time.

Sun wants brilliant people to come up with ideas they don't want to pay a think tank to come up with. If 20 people submit something and they pay 1 person $100,000 for their work, then 19 people are screwed.

Does that make it clearer?

Put up an RFP, ask for proposals, then go with ONE person/company with a brilliant idea, foot half the cash up-front so they eat more than ramen noodles. That's the traditional way to do it. You don't ask for finished products and pay $100,000 to the one that you like best after-the-fact.

Re:NO!SPEC

[Crisses]

I'm not missing any point. $100,000 is peanuts for finding their "Killer app", they're wasting the "losers" time no matter how good the apps they develop are, and they stand to make a lot more for the developer's time than the developer. The developer is going to put hundreds -- if not thousands -- of manhours into the project with about as much chance of winning the lottery.

What point did I miss?

If Sun needs a hot new app, they can request proposals. That's as close to a contest as I want to get.

If I'm going to develop a "Hot app" I'm not going to hand it to Sun. I'd at least have the dignity and self-respect to go to IBM. ;)

Also, exactly how is this project going to get anywhere if the person has to work long hard hours without pay in order to win? Paying for groceries on a credit card is a Bad Idea (TM). And there's still no guarantee you're going to get paid. This doesn't sound like a spare-time type of deal, and minors can't sign contracts and give their rights away, so that eliminates the 8-17 year old genius working over the summer category. The pay is small fry for most development firms who might be able to do this type of speculative work, and it would be an unsound business decision to develop a product you're not sure you're going to get paid for.

Re:NO!SPEC

[Iron Condor]

I'm not missing any point. $100,000 is peanuts for finding their "Killer app", they're wasting the "losers" time no matter how good the apps they develop are, and they stand to make a lot more for the developer's time than the developer. The developer is going to put hundreds -- if not thousands -- of manhours into the project with about as much chance of winning the lottery.

What point did I miss?

The point that this is all very good. You keep posting about it as if it were a bad thing, but you have yet to name one single thing that should persuade Sun NOT to do this. They get something very valuable for peanuts. You realize that. The people contributing have a high chance of getting screwed, one or two might possible have a faint chance of breaking even. Great. If I was Sun, that's exactly what I'd do.

It's redundant to note that the losers are going to get screwed -- that's what makes them losers. But it is not like Sun is going out proclaiming some people to be losers -- the losers are entirely self-selected. Just like the Lottery, as you note yourself.

Where exactly is there anything wrong with a tax on stupidity?

US only

[goldaryn]

Not 100% clear from article or TFA: only available to US-based customers.. (TFA says the service itself is US-based with plans to expand)

I get:

We are not able to grant you access to the Sun Grid Compute Utility. The service is currently only available to users located in the United States. If you feel this message is in error, or you have questions about service availabliity in your area, contact Sun Grid Customer Care at sungrid-help@sun.com and reference this service code(s): 9024

Shame.

Re:Poor old Sun.

[twiddlingbits]

First of all there is a LOT of interest in the platform, and it is being used quite a bit already, but that still only scratches the surface of what COULD be done. BTW, it won't run Blackjack as applications requiring user-interaction are not supported. Of course it could run a Monte-Carlo simulation of say 1M Blackjack games and tell you what your winnings would be :)

Only $100k?

[wick3t]

$100k may seem like a lot to most of us, but that won't even buy a fully populated V890.

Imagine

[enrevanche]

a beowulf cluster of these

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you

Re:Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

Something Wicked This Way Comes?

[gurutc]

Is an Idle Grid the Devil's Workshop?

BlueSecurity

[l0b0]

We just invented the hydrogen bomb of DDOS tools. Until the world's hackers, crackers, and spammers start using it, we could keep their botnets occupied.

Winning app...

[Garabito]

Windows Vista!

Like reality TV for engineering...

[HockeyPuck]

So reality TV works for the studios b/c they can hire basically "free" actors. No paying Seinfeld $1m per episode, but they can hire a bunch of nobodies for pennies who actually want to act for the sake of acting and not making millions for this piece of work. So the TV studios rake in huge profits by not having to pay out these salaries...

Now the computer industry is doing it...

We've seen 'hack this box for a prize' as its cheaper to pay out awards than to hire QA engineers.

Google does 'summer of code'...

Now sun does "write apps for us". Much cheaper than hiring a team of developers (or even one developer for that matter).

Re:Like reality TV for engineering...

[Crisses]

The summer of code pays something (MUCH better than most internships!), and if I remember correctly some of it is paid out along the duration. It's not "Do this work and MAYBE we'll pay you something."

But I get the gist -- everyone's looking for cheap labor.

Make sequencing

[Anonymous Coward]

Grid can be best utilized for DNA and protein decoding.. the next rapid wave coming all the wave into computing industry... lets gear up for that and try making some cool apps using the Sun Grid.

Any one interested....??

100 hours of CPU time translates into...

[avi33]

mmm...about 12 seconds on the grid?

ok, I'll bite. I would like to see Pi calculated to one bazillion kajillion places.

Get some decent admins

[Colin Smith]

Who will write some wrapper scripts so that any heavyweight processes started are farmed out to the pool of available machines. i.e. use your grid for everything, including open office, thunderbird and anything else you can get to work. Write some wrappers which make it easy to distribute jobs all over the place, people will use it if it's easy. Then, when you need more throughput you can transparently just add more machines.

Re:Get some decent admins

[Colin Smith]

oh and we got ours for free, so I don't think your job's all that secure even if you do find a use for it. :)

100 free CPU hours

[timeOday]

Note that's CPU hours, not hours on the whole cluster. Fire up 500 nodes and the free ride will be over real quick :)

How about a link to the actual contest page

[SloppyElvis]

Coolapps Contest Description referenced by the Sun press release, but not linked (for some reason).

International Contestents can use the Compute Server Plugin for NetBeans.

Not US Only

[SloppyElvis]

Coolapps Contest Page

The linked page actually explains the contest. International contestants can use the Compute Server Plugin for NetBeans to compete.

Contest B

        * Open to both US and International participants
        * Does not require access to the Sun Grid Compute Utility
        * Contest submission must be developed using the Compute Server Plugin for NetBeans.
                    o This excludes C/C++ applications as well as Java applications not developed with Compute Server Project.
        * Contest submission must fall within at least one of the following relevant categories: Financial Services, Media and Entertainment, Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Energy, Scientific and Academic, Misc.
        * Contest submission must not require a 3rd-party commercial license to run.

Grid business idea

[TropicalCoder]

Develop a distributed app to make the Grid a rendering farm and contract it out to animation film companies.

john.pot

[lon3st4r]

so how long before john's .pot files are seen on the grid?

Can't give away Grid at www.ubero.com!

[shodson]

Yeah, I have a grid of 6200 volunteers, and growing, but I can't even give away my compute services. There are only so many embarrasingly parallel problems out there.

Hrm...

[Duncan3]

There are literally thousands of applications already out there that use a large cluster, which is all the Sun "GRID" is.

Maybe, just maybe... YOU'RE CHARGING TOO MUCH.

Oh, and noone is going to trust their data to Sun, or anyone else, ever.

P.S. just declare bankruptcy already, open source Java, and go away. You're really annoying.

Bah, don't care about the competition...

[Korgan]

How long till Boinc and dnetc are ported to run on the Grid and does anyone know where I can get some cheap credit card numbers to pay for the CPU time? ;-)

More seriously... With 5000 Opteron processors in this thing, why not use it for something like cracking the current RC5 competition code, or speeding up the climate change/SETI/whatever processing in Boinc?

With that much horse power, I'd almost be tempted to run Boinc on it till my credit card was maxed out. The climate change stuff my computer is currently sifting through with Boinc is supposed to need almost 2500 CPU hrs to finish. That leaves room on most credit cards to run dnetc to crack the RC5 competition while I'm at it ;-)

Re:Bah, don't care about the competition...

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd change the climate just starting up all those machines :-p

Re:Cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. If Sun wants to sell this service they need to make the cost to rent CPU time cheaper than the cost of buying CPUs. A 90% price reduction is needed to make the grid service cheaper than buying in-house capacity.

Like open source for free

[Anonymous Coward]

"But I get the gist -- everyone's looking for cheap labor."

The phrase you're looking for is...open source. Luckly GPL 3.0 will fix that.

Hello world

[Anonymous Coward]

A java "Hello World" ought to keep it busy for a few decades.

Forkbomb!

[Anonymous Coward]

Forkbomb!

Thats gotta be a winner app.

How 'bout a distributed version of Blue Security?

[PeeAitchPee]

Use it to pick up where Blue Security left off . . . use a grid-based app to blast "Pharmamaster" and all of the other spam-douche bags off the fucking planet . . . in a legal way compliant to CAN-SPAM, of course. ;-)

Render farm, anyone?

[Animats]

It might make a nice render farm. But who supports Sparcs any more?

ResPower is successfully serving that market, for money, and their prices are good, probably better than Sun's. Supports 3DS, Lightwave, Maya, Blender, etc. 484 frames are rendering right now. "Over 12 million frames rendered".

ResPower is one of the very few "grid" companies actually selling a service for which people will pay.

Re:Render farm, anyone?

[rustymuffler]

ResPower is interesting, but are they really a Grid, or just a farm? It looks more like the former to me. Also, if Sun can make this work couldn't sites like ResPower be built on top of Sun's Grid?

Re:Render farm, anyone?

[rustymuffler]

also, sun grid is x65, not Sparc

Re:Sunsolve.com[ VIRUS ALERT! ]

[Anonymous Coward]

The link tries to infect you with LoveLetter. Asshole.

Grid SpellChecker

[bigbadbuccidaddy]

I am going to win this contest with a Grid Spellchecker. From the official rules:
https://coolapps.developer.network.com/Rules.html
CoolApps Developer Challange Contest
The 3rd word is misspelled! My Grid SpellChecker would have caught that in a fraction of the time of a regular old spellchecker...
Sun should just send me the 15K right now.

Re:Sunsolve.com[ VIRUS ALERT! ]

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about? it forwards you to a Sun resellers site. I made a mistake. The link is Sunsolve.sun.com

they couldn't figure it out either

[x1pfister]

I haven't been able to figure out what to do with a grid, and it seems the industry can't either.