Summary: This document provides credits and legal information about both the server and client applications.
I, Joe Schulman, am the sole contributor to this version. With the exception of borrowed Paint.NET icons, I wrote all of the source code for this project.
The .NET framework made it very easy to get this code up and running. From easy, intuitive process management, threadding, and communication (WCF rocks!), I know that my productivity was increased in C#. Compared to Java, I would say productivity was at least double.
This project was started to support my honors thesis at the University of Nebraska--Lincoln. I worked with Dr. Myra Cohen in the Esquared lab in the Computer Science and Engineering Department.
My honors thesis needed to run 150 GUI tests under 500 configurations. Each run of the 150 gui tests took a little more than an hour, and we were looking at a month of computation just to complete one experiment. We decided to run the different configurations in parallel on virtual PCs. I soon realized how difficult it was to manually start and stop experiments on virtual PCs. So, like any lazy programmer, I looked for existing code to do the work for me.
I only came across one project, Condor, that did what I needed. However, Condor is designed for "real" parallel computing projects and seemed like overkill for what I needed. Rather than spend much effort getting Condor set up, I wrote the code myself.
This code is intentionally aimed at the simple case -- that's all I needed. If you are looking for advanced scheduling, batch management, multiple-platforms, etc., look elsewhere. This project does one thing, and I believe it does so moderately well: run batches in parallel on Windows machines.
The license for this application binary and source code is Microsoft Public License (Ms-Pl). See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html for more details.
This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software. 1. Definitions The terms "reproduce," "reproduction," "derivative works," and "distribution" have the same meaning here as under U.S. copyright law. A "contribution" is the original software, or any additions or changes to the software. A "contributor" is any person that distributes its contribution under this license. "Licensed patents" are a contributor's patent claims that read directly on its contribution. 2. Grant of Rights (A) Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works that you create. (B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software. 3. Conditions and Limitations (A) No Trademark License- This license does not grant you rights to use any contributors' name, logo, or trademarks. (B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically. (C) If you distribute any portion of the software, you must retain all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices that are present in the software. (D) If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license. (E) The software is licensed "as-is." You bear the risk of using it. The contributors give no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws which this license cannot change. To the extent permitted under your local laws, the contributors exclude the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
The icons are taken from the Paint.NET application. They are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ for more details.