It took me a long time to read this post and don't know the precursor thread that initiated this one as I wasn't able to be around much lately. But I think it's one of the best TA-DC threads I've read in my time with TA,
outstanding work Peter!! I never really thought about many things mentioned here and I already apologize for my rather long answer that is about to come:
1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be remunerated?
I would not like to see this happen. Maybe I'm an idealist, but is there really the need to go commercial? Has there ever been any DC project that had to shut down because nobody wanted to crunch it? If, so please tell me, because I wouldn't know of any. In addition to that, as others already stated, $ means corruption. To me, the DC community as a whole has something of a "frontier spirit" that would get spoiled by the involvement of $. I'm aware that this is an idealistic and probably also naive attitude.
2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?
Honesty. Nothing more, nothing less. If they find something: great! Imagine that SETI had come up with a factual evidence that ET actually IS out there. W00t! But also, if they can't find what they're looking for, tell the crunchers as well. I liked the fact that Lifemapper and Distributed Folding clearly said that after a certain point of time, they wouldn't need the DC community anymore and thus freed up resources for other projects. Other DC projects do not do that, they keep going on for what seems to be forever and thus bind forces. (No, this is not a pun on SETI but a general observation).
When doing a project like Einstein, DPAD or LHC, it's pretty easy to get a real world result. Either they find those gravitational waves or not, either they build that collider in the best way possible or not. With FaD, F@H, Predictor and other such projects it's much harder. Yes, they find some proteins that have some possibilities to enact with a virus/cancer/cell/other protein but to take that to the next level and give me as a cruncher a result in my hand I can use is a long way. CPDN for example will never have a real life result any time prior to 50 years in the future, when the calculations can be verified with reality outside our doors and a simple thermometer. But still people crunch CPDN so real life examples can't be all that important.
Feedback from the project leaders is also a thing I really appreciate. I donate my time & money; then they should also donate some time and visit the forums and post regular news. That was one of the reasons I left D2OL after a while, just no news. I'm not talking about any particular news, just a sign that the people behind a project are actually still alive and still need and appreciate the work that is being done for them. And of course, a nice certificate once in a while isn't bad either.
3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?
That's a though one. For me it always has something to do with my own ethics. Until I had my little fight with Stephen Brooks (the guy who runs DPAD) I did the project with so much effort and energy like I've never done before and after. To me it was meaningful because it was of essential spiritual value if there exists something like a muon or not. If they exist, the matter of space ultimatey might be sufficient to contract again and we have another big bang. If not, space would expand for ever and eventually become a cold (and I mean COLD) and dark place without life. From a religious point of view, the second case would deeply contradict my own view of creation. A cold and dark universe seems pretty pointless after all the effort to create it. But one that lives for a while and then explodes again into a new one is a good idea and gives room for new creation. Thus, DPAD was essential to me. (This is a really simplified version of DPAD and what drove me to crunch it)
Right now I do FaD because it seemed really worthwhile and to mye knowledge, it is exceptional because it actually validates findings with 3rd party laboratories. And really, I want to have one of those certificates telling me that I crunched one of those proteins that have anti-cancer activity.
4. Do we really know what we are crunching?
Nope. But I guess that they actually really do what they claim to do. The question is rather how good to they do what they do. I know that there are so many gifted and talented DCers out there that take a look into almost every detail of what they do. Just think of all the 3rd party tools available. I think that if there was some scam going on, somebody of them would discover it sooner or later. That's a benefit of those projects that give feedback. For example, it would be very hard for CPDN to calculate something else, because with some 3rd party tools, you can take a look into what you actually crunched on and get such a load of detailled info, that CPDN would have to have a special "let's fake some results and make 'em look good" departmend in order to cheat us, the users.
5. Also, do we know how the results are used?
Not really. But hope dies last, at least for me. Besides that, I can't see how some DC project could actually make money with what they do. I mean, who would pay a load of money to gain the knowledge, that gravitational waves exist (E@H) or that the largest prime number has a thousand or more digits? Others of course, like those with medical purpose potentially can abuse the results. But as Mike said, "not guitly until proven." Again, yes, that's naive of me but I still believe in the good in people first before I condemn them and the same goes for my DCs.
6. Also a question about the people behind the projects arises: who are these people? What info about the projects should we require?
That doesn' really matter to me. I mean, do you know all the people behind the manufacturer of your car or your washing machine? But I guess you still trust them to do a good job. I for my part enter my car every day with the feeling of "hello car" and not "OMG, don't kill me car, don't abuse me!" I hope you see me point. What I'd like to have would be some official representatives that are in contact with all other people of the DC project and to those official representatives I could address my questions. I mean, you never call Bill Gates and tell him that his OS crashed again, you call somebody lower in the ranks, but eventually the info will get through and reach the top. Well, maybe not in the case of M$ but in a small DC it will because if it doesn't, crunchers will just stop and do other DCs.
Pheww.... long answer. Sorry if I bored somebody.
Peter, again, great work with opening this thread. It really made me think about my attitute towards DC in general. Probably I (we) are too trusting about some DC projects. I don't want to condemn all of them as I guess neither of us here wants to. But maybe there are some "black sheeps" out there. We'll see. Indeed, I guess there first has to come the big crash until we start to realize what has been going on with our time, effort and money. I myself was thinking about building a new Athlon X2 system but for now have suspended that idea until I'm more clear about the DCs I do. And yes, I will read into them way more thoroughly that I did before.
EDIT: typos and grammar