I have watched with interest the ideas flowing around for the distribution of
the prize money awarded by the EFF and how we should try and reach an
equitable
distribution.
In fact the answer is simple, the person who discovers it is *entitled* to it,
end of story. I would hope that they would *choose* to donate some to George
and Scott, but if they decide not to well then that is up to them.
Direct quote from eff page
>
> Through the EFF Cooperative Computing Awards, EFF will confer prizes of:
> $50,000 to the first individual or group who discovers
> a prime number with at least 1,000,000 decimal digits
Seems clear to me, the GIMPS s/w is given away free to the individual who runs
the test. If we want to amend that then George will (or have to get drawn
up) a
legally binding software license. Now of course if the next winner comes
from a
country who doesn't recognise US laws...
Now that would be interesting, what would the EFF do then given that they are
entirely about freedom and the rights of the infividual.
As a Mersenne prime discoverer it would appear that I would be on the panel(s)
that have been suggested, and my vote goes to allowing the discoverer to keep
it and do what their conscience tells them is the right thing to do.
I don't agree with Luke's sentiments about orderly progress, having already
tested one number in the 20m range. As soon as V19 is available I'm jumping up
into the 33-35m range. As long as they all get tested does it matter in what
order?
So a test will take my PII-300 about 3 years, so what, if I've got the
patience....I can always switch the intermediate results over to faster
processors as I get them.
regards
Gordon Spence (finder of M2976221 which earned me precisely $0.00 <G> )
_________________________________________________________________
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
