IT Professionals

Getting Paid For Doing Nothing With Your PC

Posted by on Sep 30, 2008 | 3 Comments

Recently I received a confusing email asking me about getting paid for idle CPU time. Thinking back a bit, I finally recalled a piece I put together back in 2006 on the subject. Unfortunately, it does look like you will no longer be able to profit from it as you once could.

Do not misunderstand — anyone can profit from open source software. However, the old business model for CPUShare has changed as it went from for-profit to non-profit. This came with a shift to a new license as well it seems.

So can you still make money from idle computer CPU cycles? Possibly, but not that I know of. If you know something I don’t, hit the comments above and share any inside info you might have on the matter.

  • Bobzilla

    Let’s make it clear, getting paid to use idle CPU time is really about doing some real work by turning that idle CPU time into active CPU cycles. So in reality your PC is doing something, most likely your CPU will be maxed out at 100% usage. I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t see how releasing the client CPUShare software under the under the LGPL v2.1 license makes the project as a whole non-profit. But hear and again I’m not sure what kind of cluster we have here.

  • http://www.gomezpeerzone.com/ Alan Sease

    I ran across this on CNET:

    (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10016736-2.gomez).

    While I haven’t actually received any money yet (I only started a short while ago), it does appear to be a viable business model.

  • fommy

    I only has a problem with the security of it all.And the tax it may have on my computer.And the fact i like to monitor what my computer is doing at all times.