Paul Missman wrote: > 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.
Simple publishing of your discovery would not necessarily require software disclosure. Qualification for one of the Electronic Frontier Foundation cash awards ($100,000, $150,000 or $250,000) for discovery of the first prime number in specified ranges would require, among other things, "...a description of any hardware and software used in the primality test. EFF reserves the right to require a more detailed disclosure." See http://www.eff.org/awards/award-prime-rules.html > The Idea that someone can "poach" a number still strikes me as > humorous. What is being poached is not the number itself, but the exclusive Primenet assignment to test that number. > I doubt that the claim would hold much water if tested in a court > of law. It's not a matter of law; it's a matter of "fair play" or "rules of the game". > Is the negative impact here that large groups of numbers are being > tied up for unreasonable lengths of time? No. It's that some people don't have the patience to wait for more than a short time when GIMPS progress is close to certain "milestones". They can't forgo jumping in to "bat out of turn", as it were. > 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? No. That would _not_ be "poaching". See my earlier posting about "Poaching -- Definition". > However, I'd support some sort of reasonable timeout on the > "ownership" of numbers checked out from the database. Right now, PrimeNet has no way to enforce time limits on its testing assignments. (That capability is coming in the future.) George Woltman has periodically stepped in to "manually" cancel laggards that are unmistakeably not progressing reasonably. Some impatient individuals can't bring themselves to wait for George's actions; they decide to jump in to "poach". Trouble is, the poachers all-too-often mistakenly target an L-L assignment that is actually proceeding reasonably and is not a laggard. (That's what's happened to me, multiple times! I've _never_ been holding up some "milestone", but the poacher of my assignments never bothered to determine that, apparently.) If they'd leave it to George, we'd have fewer such mistakes. > 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. That's hardly ever a poacher's motivation. > 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. That's your right. But just because _you_ choose not to highly value the exclusivity of your assignment doesn't mean that _others_ who do value that exclusivity highly should not be able to enjoy the benefits of unpoached assignments. But poachers don't ask whether the assignment-holder would mind being poached. Richard Woods _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
