Electric Sheep: the screensaver that evolves, and the repository that is now an archive

The repository says up front that it is an archive

The first two lines of the README settle the most important question about this repository. The project has moved to the e-dream-ai/client repository, and this repository is now an archive only. That changes how everything else in the documentation should be read. The top-level entries are consistent with that statement: a .gitignore, a readme.txt and a single client_generic/ directory, with no build system, no package manifest and no active source tree at the root. For a reader who lands here hoping to build a screensaver, that is a dead end, and the README says so before they read a paragraph. What remains is still worth something, and there are two ways to read it. The first is as a historical snapshot of a project that moved house several times, and the second is as the place where the older instruction set lives while the renderer sits in a separate project. The lineage notes at the bottom of the README record the moves: 2015.05 moved from a code.google.com repository, and 2011.01.30 based on revision 1546 on sf.net. So this tree has been carried across at least three hosting arrangements before GitHub, and the last push to it was on 2026-04-17, well after the archive notice.

The client and the rendering engine are two separate projects

The single most useful piece of structural information in the README is that the rendering engine is a separate project, at the scottdraves/flam3 repository. Everything else follows from that split. The client is what runs on your machine and decides which piece of art to show, while flam3 is what computes the images. The README states the actual instructions for Electric Sheep are in the README of the linked repository, and that the file you are reading contains instructions for Linux users. That is the practical takeaway for anyone who wants to run something: this README is not the instruction set, the flam3 and client repositories hold the current commands. The separate project is not an implementation detail either. The flame algorithm gets its own documentation site at flam3.com, which the README describes as separate from the main Electric Sheep website and covering the algorithm in more depth. So a user who wants to understand how the images are produced goes to a different domain from a user who wants to install the screensaver.

What the thing actually is: a cyborg mind running on other people's idle CPUs

The description of what Electric Sheep is runs to something more interesting than a screensaver, and the README is written in a deliberately grand register about it. It calls the Electric Sheep a cyborg mind that harnesses the collective intelligence of 450,000 computers and people to create abstract art with mathematics and Darwinian evolution, with the result described as continuous, organic and endless. Taken literally, the number is worth pausing on. The project as documented here is an open source project for anyone to use to customise and personalise their screen savers, and by compiling and running its instructions you gain access to different artworks, or Sheeps, which appear on your computer after it falls asleep. The Darwinian part is the mechanism: rather than a fixed animation, the artwork is a population of mutated forms competing for a place on your screen, and the selection pressure comes from which ones people keep. That is why the phrase crowdsourced artwork appears in the project description, and it is why the project has needed a network of participants rather than a single renderer.

Windows users are routed through Cygwin, which dates the instructions

The platform instructions are short and they reveal their age. The README says the file contains instructions for Linux users, and that a Windows user looking to run the project can install the cygwin package, and from there uses the env command to follow the directions or does it manually through the command prompt. The env command is the giveaway. That is the Cygwin mechanism for setting environment variables, and the fact that it is still the recommended path tells you the Windows support was built around a POSIX compatibility layer rather than native Windows APIs. The same is true of the build instructions themselves. The README says you will find some executable files in the current GitHub, which is loose phrasing that suggests the binaries were checked in rather than built from the sources you are reading, and it points to the example run in the github instructions being for fractal frames, with a note that different fractal figures and animations are available. The project also says you can visit the website to download or install the app directly, which is a sensible alternative for anyone who finds looking at the code harder than installing the thing.

Contributing means adding your own Sheep to a shared database

The README describes a progression for the user, and the last stage is the interesting one. You install and run the main source code, get comfortable with the variations of screen saver they offer, and then you can edit the code to create your own Sheep or screensavers. After that there is the possibility of submitting your creation to the database of all the sheep. That closes the loop the project description describes. If the Sheep are a population and the population is selected by what people keep, then a submission is not just a contribution of artwork, it is an entry into the evolutionary pool that other people's machines will render. The README is explicit that the initial source code will help get everything set up and running on your local device, and that after compiling and running the source code you can edit the code yourself with the different variations. So the intended relationship with the code is as a starting point to be modified, not as a black box to install. The project is MIT, and its homepage is electricsheep.org, with the founder's own site at scottdraves.com, and Scott Draves is named as the creator and founder.

The licence is GPL2 and the copyright sits with a company

The licence section is short and slightly confusing, which is worth unpacking. It says copyright Spotworks LLC, and GPL2 licensed, with a pointer to the COPYING file inside client_generic/. So the copyright is held by a company rather than by the individual, and the terms are version 2 of the GNU General Public License. The README does not say which version of the GPL applies beyond that shorthand, and the definitive answer lives in the COPYING file in the subdirectory, which is what you should read if you plan to redistribute. The repository's own licence field is recorded as unknown, so do not rely on a badge or a metadata field here, the file in client_generic/ is the source of truth. The LICENSE discussion also does not cover the split between this archive and the two other projects, the client now at e-dream-ai/client and the renderer at flam3, each of which will carry its own terms. The homepage is electricsheep.org, and this archive is a snapshot rather than a maintained distribution, so the licence question is largely academic for most readers and relevant only to those who intend to reuse the code.

Editorial conclusion

scottdraves/electricsheep suits someone who wants to read the historical source of a screensaver that ran on millions of machines, or who wants to trace the flame algorithm lineage back to its roots. It is the wrong choice for anyone who wants to install or build the current Electric Sheep, because the repository says plainly that it is an archive only and the project has moved to a different repository. Verify first where the code you want actually lives, whether you are after the client or the renderer, and that the licence terms in client_generic/COPYING cover the use you intend, since the repository's own licence field is not classified.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. Project website
3. README
4. scottdraves/electricsheep on GitHub