If memory serves me correct, I was the first one to use the term poaching in reference to snagging numbers assigned to someone else, so I'll add my $0.02 worth. :)
At the time (and this debate still comes up every now and then), Primenet didn't expire exponents... That was something that George and Scott would do manually on a periodic basis. I thought nothing at all of going through the primenet work lists and finding exponents that hadn't been checked on in a while or had been running for years, or that still had years left to run, and then just completing them myself in order to get the darn things cleared off. The reasoning behind it was (and still is) to clear out old exponents being double-checked so that we would be able to confirm the order of the known Mersenne primes... Having to wait for 2 years (and yes, there were some like that) for a single exponent to be double-checked when that would hold up proving the ordering of a certain prime, well... It bugged me. :) Now that exponents are re-released automatically after not being checked in for 60 days, that has certainly helped. There are still the odd machines (486's or what?) out there that run and actually do check in from time to time, yet will take years to complete a single LL test, but the issue of finishing out double-check ranges hasn't really come up in a while, so I don't care so much at the moment. However, it should be noted that I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to "poach" a double-check from a MUCH slower machine if that's what was holding up finishing off a range of checks... By slow, I mean an exponent that was still showing over 6 months or so to complete, especially when a good, new machine could finish the same exponent in a couple of days. :) For the most part though, it seemed that once upon a time there was a problem with poachers who just took small exponents from people who were actually still working on them, and simply ran them on a faster machine or something. That's the sort of thing that gives us "respectable" poachers a bad name. :-D As for any legal issues, well, at the time there were no rewards for finding the next prime, so if I had happened to poach a prime #, I'm sure it wouldn't have been a big a deal as it would be now if you were actually going to claim some prize money as a result. Still though, IANAL but it would seem that since these numbers are public domain, and nobody can be said to have any special claim to any of them, you probably wouldn't have much legal standing if you wanted to go after someone who poached a number from you that turned out to be a prize winning prime. Yeah, it'd suck, but you know the old saying... Life isn't fair. :) Aaron PS - I can't remember how long I've been doing GIMPS now... Since before Primenet, but I can't recall how long ago that was... '96 maybe? '97? Seems like ages at any rate. I just recall sending emails to George telling him which numbers I'd picked from the database to start working on. :) The "original" primenet. :) > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of > Kel Utendorf > Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 12:01 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Poaching -- Definition (was: Mersenne: Re: > Mersenne Digest V1 #1038) > > > On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Richard Woods wrote: > > >Paul Missman wrote: > >> I know that this might be earth shattering news for you, > >> but there is no such thing as "poaching". > > > >I think that folks who've been following the poaching > discussion from > >the beginning know that there is indeed such a thing, and > what it is. > >But let me post a refresher for the sake of newcomers. > > You know, the "anti-poachers" seem so strident and > self-absorbed and hell-bent on their mission to make > "poaching" into the next offense that the U.N. investigates > that I'm inclined to begin doing some poaching just to tweak > them a bit. I wonder what numbers this Woods fellow has > reserved...;-) > > Kel > A GIMPS participant since George > had only 300 of us running his fine program(s) _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
