Posts by Sayrs

1) Message boards : Rosetta@home Science : Reasons some people avoid BOINC projects (Message 16808) Posted 22 May 2006 by Sayrs Post: Here are two more. I'm familiar with it solely because I'm associated with a local government in the State of Washington. 1) In the State of Washington, there is a constitutional prohibition against the gift of public funds. This extends to the use of public property for someone other than government use. 2) Also, in the State of Washington, there is an obligation for governments to retain and make all records open for public inspection. That is, if we have a file, we have to make it available to people. I wrote earlier to the project, and got no response. I suggested that there are literally thousands of computers about the State of Washington that could work on this and, since it is a University of Washington project, there is no small probability of utilizing a large percentage of them. In order to do this, however, I need a legal opinion which states that this is not an unconstitutional use of public funds (presumably because it's a state project), and that there is no obligation for the government to maintain these records and make them public (presumably because they are work product, and the final documents are held by the University). As a city councilmember, I'm always looking for ways for my city government to use its resources to best effect. I'm also always looking for ways to earn the affection of the public, and the fact that we can form teams can really help with that. I can imagine cities having a freindly competition over which city/residents/companies can do the most for this valuable project. If there is an attorney, preferably at the University of Washington, who has some expertise on this so that an opinion can be posted on the website, I would really appreciate it. Thanks