Re: Mersenne: Re: poaching

[Paul Missman]

Hi Ernst!   You bring up an interesting point about the software, I suppose.  I never thought that George or Scott considered the software proprietary.  I'd think that a basic Lucas-Lehmer type software could be written without too much headache, though I've never tried my hand at it.   I do wonder at your assertion that, were I to discover a large prime by a self written program, I would have to publish the program along with the discovered prime.  I'd imagine that, as long as the number could be verified by independent means, it would be an publishable fact.   I'll admit that I didn't follow this poaching thread from the beginning.  I just noticed much more than the normal volume of Mersenne email, and decided to see what was up.  The Idea that someone can "poach" a number still strikes me as humorous.  It is a bit like me trying to copyright the number1234567890.  I doubt that the claim would hold much water if tested in a court of law.   Is the negative impact here that large groups of numbers are being tied up for unreasonable lengths of time?  Or is it that some lucky person might just happen to stumble on a large prime, and publish it, while someone in GIMPS/Primenet had it checked out for testing?   If the latter, I'd have to say, in my mind, finding a large prime is pretty much a crap shoot.  However, I'd support some sort of reasonable timeout on the "ownership" of numbers checked out from the database.  Also, if I had some magic insight into the probability of a particular number turning up prime, I'd probably want to test it, even if I didn't "own" it.   I've spent a reasonable part of my life in the search for primes.  Some with GIMPS/Primenet, and some not.  For some odd reason, those numbers have always fascinated me.  But I never for a moment considered that my having a number checked out from Primenet meant that nobody else had a right to test it - even if they beat me to a result.   Paul (Who hasn't written this much to the Mersenne email list in years) Missman   Paul Missman wrote: >Neither GIMPS or Primenet have any license to these numbers, nor are they >the only entities testing large numbers for primality. True, but if you use GIMPS software, you agree to play by the (in my mind quite reasonable) rules. If you find those rules too constraining, you can either (a) not use the software, or (b) waive your right to claim any monetary reward (and possibly discoverer credit) should you happen to find a prime using said software. It's quite simple, really - if you can't play nicely with our software, then write your own. Even "free" software may have certain conditions of use - you couldn't just rip off GIMPS software for your company (let's call it PrimeWare) and try to make money off it that way, either. You're absolutely right, the numbers themselves are free for all to do with as they please. The software, however, is not. >If my sister reads from her math book a method of testing large primes, >knows nothing of Primenet or GIMPS, tests the numbers on her home computer, >and finds a large prime, she is gonna publish it. ...which would require her to make available the software she used to discover the prime. If she's such a talented programmer that she used her own, bully for her. If not, see my previous point. Cheers, -Ernst, who actually *did* write his own Mersenne-testing software, uses it a lot, and *still* doesn't poach.