Ain't it time to place a more "fresh" version of BOINC into the reps?

[Steffen Moeller]

Hello Aleksey,

have many thanks for contacting us.

Алексей Щербина wrote:
> Guess it's far from being a first  such question, but me and many other
> participants of distributed computing projects from Russia wondering, why
> there is such an old version(s) of BOINC core client and BOINC manager in
> Debian's repository? Sure it can work normally in most cases, but there's
> one aspect - CUDA computing and BOINC projects.

CUDA truly is cool stuff. But from what I understood we are not allowed to 
redistribute it freely. We would need to move into contrib, if not into 
non-free to support it properly.

> As it is well known for DC projects volunteers, such an old version of
> BOINC like 6.4.5 can't work at all or can't work normally in modern BOINC
> projects that using GPUs for data processing - there is needed at least
> 6.5.x version, and later is better.
> 
> So the question (and probably even the request, desire...) is why not to
> include in Debian repository newer versions of BOINC software? For example,
> recommended and well tested by BOINC team and thу whole DC community
> worldwide version 6.6.40 for "lenny"? Or since it's a new version for
> Debian, may be more correct way will be to include this modern version of
> BOINC into the repository for "squeeze"?
> 
> Please keep us informed about this question - when newer version will be
> inclided, or if it not - then why. We, DC community, want to make a world
> better by way of our participating in DC projects, and this new version of
> BOINC client will help us (and DC projects founders) in this business.

I can understand your frustration between the lines. The proper answer is 
probably to have two packages. One boinc.dfsg and another boinc.non-free. 
 From what we observe, though, the packaging of the current package is 
already beyond what we can properly do in our spare time.

I have not asked the others, but if you would have the resources to care 
about the packages properly, and possibly to provide to distinct routes for 
  DFSG and non-DFSG packages, then I would see this happening -- and be 
happy. If you send me your alioth ID, and noone of the current maintainers 
objects to it, then I just grant you access.

Many greetings

Steffen (working mostly for non-cuda FightAids at Home)