Hello, everyone. Wow, there was a lot in the last digest that I thought
needed commenting on. This prize thread is _almost_ getting as bad, in my
opinion, as the other, recent, evil thread which I shall not name. I am, of
course, replying to many different people in this message.
<<P.S. Are archives available past February 1998? >>
The archives, from what I've personally seen, seem to be "broken", and I
don't think anyone has been running archives for the list since then. This is
Ptoo Bad for me, because I was depending on the archives to keep my post
about my 3 Mersenne prime conjectures (#1: That there's a prime around the 4M
range that we're missing. #2: That the discovered M38, which all we knew
about was that it was in the 6M range, was actually around 6.9M, which I was
correct about, and #3: A conjecture about the decamegaprime.), but I guess
I'll rely on everyone's memories and perhaps (!) their own personal archives.
I would keep my own, but the digests usually run over 20K, and AOL doesn't
like to store mails of that size in the regular fashion.
****
>What's wrong with having a panel (possibly consisting of previous
>Mersenne prime discoverers) to evaluate any contenders for this &
>judge how much, if any, of the fund should be awarded for each
>improvement?
Sensible idea. The panel could come up with their own set of rules.
I'm not sure I'd want to be on such a panel unless my vote was
anonymous ("Sorry, Heloisa, but I think your idea was worth only....").
****
I agree wholly with the other person who said that the prize is the
discoverer's and the discoverer's alone. GIMPS can't have a panel nor any
other thing to divy up the money. We can _suggest_ things that the winner
_might_ want to do with the money, but we can't _order_ her/him to do a
single thing.
<<Landon Noll is disqualified.>>
Why?
<<But they all won't get tested, not for another 20+ years. After the
10Mdigit prime, there will be the 100Mdigit prime, then the giga-digit
prime. GIMPS has been lauded for conducting an orderly search, even
more so for double checking. Jumping ahead, the search space will once
again become horribly fragmented -- a giant step backwards into the Cray
era.>>
Orderly checking is a MUST.
<<I don't know if that's fair or not, I won't get into that. But the
discoverer of a prime found using GIMPS and/or Primenet would receive all
the money him/herself and then it's up to him/her what to do with it;
whether sharing some with George/Scott is something they would do is
entirely up to them.>>
Correct.
<<Unless George/Scott set some legal mumbo jumbo that ties into use of the
program/source/services, they're simply not "entitled" to any prize money.>>
Avoiding legal mumbo jumbo is an equal must.
<<And it was mentioned before...if George and/or Scott setup such a legal
contract regarding software usage, there probably would be people writing
their own software, hoping to get the big cash all to themselves. And the
whole effort of coordinating who works on what exponents could get messy if
Scott says that using his Primenet database to check out/in numbers means
you agree to share prize money with him. People will start grabbing their
own numbers or setting up competing databases of their own or who knows
what.>>
This is my fear. Right now, GIMPS is the only major concerted effort to find
Mersenne Primes, and we ought to keep it that way. This has led to orderly
searching, and not a mad free-for-all. The prize money should (and must!) go
entirely to the discoverer, because any attempts to do otherwise will most
likely lead to this sort of dire fragmentation.
<<And again, the first deca-mega-digit prime may not be a Mersenne
anyway...who can say? :-)>>
It could be a Fermat prime! *chortle*
<<If that's the case, it is up to that "group" to decide, in some legally
binding way, how prize money is disbursed. I suppose it's too late to worry
about such things now, since the $50K prize-winner has been found, but it's
something to think about, if we choose to go down that perilous road,
sometime before the $100K winner becomes imminent.
As such, I think the EFF would have to award the money solely to the
individual since no prior stipulations existed between him and George/Scott
on how the money would be split.>>
And, as I've said, stipulations would not be a good thing.
<<I agree also...like I mentioned above, setting up legalities will only
muddle the entire issue and give rise to competing databases and programs.>>
Definitely.
<<Just my $0.02 worth (of course anyone who disagrees with me will be shot!)>>
I liked another thing I once saw. You know those little tags that say "These
opinions are not those of the So-And-So Corporation"? Peter Gutmann has the
following tag on his web page:
****
Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed on this page are not in fact mine but were forced on
me at gunpoint by the University of Auckland.
****
<<If someone read on George's page "running this software means that you
lose most of the prize money." They could do one of 3 things:
(1) Say "Oky-doky" and download/run George's program
(2) Say "Well, (sensored) you" and continue surfing
(3) Say "Where can I get another program?" and find the others>>
That would not be a good thing. It's amazing what money will do to people. In
a way, I almost wish that EFF had never come up with their prizes, so we
could have avoided all of this unpleasantness.
<<George is considering the creation of a non-profit corporation for
the purpose of dividing the prize money, so the legal issues
would be addressed. George asked for opinions on how to *distribute*
the money.>>
I don't think that such a corporation should be created, as it could lead to
Very Bad Things, including the downfall of GIMPS's long and happy reign over
Mersenne Primes. I _REALLY_ don't think that this corporation should be made.
<<My guess is that making participation to GIMPS/PrimeNet conditional
on agreeing to share the prize would be A Big Turn-Off.>>
Exactly.
<<At present we find approx. 1% of the LL
test results submitted are incorrect.>>
That figure seems a tad high. After double-checking, there would be a 0.01%
chance that BOTH tests had failed, which seems very high to me.
A summary of my opinions, so others don't need to respond directly to my
(unfortunately) long message:
1) Prize money should go to one person (or small team): The discoverer.
2) A non-profit corporation to divide any prizes must NOT be created.
3) Orderly checking of exponents is vital.
4) We must make all attempts to not entice others to create competing efforts
to check Mersenne primes, as it would lead to chaos.
5) We need new archives for this list, as the current ones seem to be
dead/broken/seriously outdated.
6) Legal mumbo jumbo must be avoided. I like GIMPS the way it was, before EFF
prizes, and nothing ought to be changed.
S.T.L.
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