On Sat, Feb 2, 2002 10:15 PM, Mary Conner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Is that fun? Does that sound like fun? Some hobby! > >George said no poaching. He said if there was a problem with exponents >not being completed in a timely fashion, he would take care of it. >Anybody who continues to poach is putting up a big fat middle finger to >George and GIMPS and running off legitimate participants that they >consider "not worthy". I have to agree with Mary. I run lots of older systems that do double-checks. I been the victim of poachers a few times, and it really annoys me. Whenever an exponent is tested an extra time, work is wasted. The current checkin system implicitly assumes the first double check is useful, and the next one is redundant. If the poacher checks in first, he is rewarded. This seems fine at first glance, since the project wants the double check result, and the poacher has provided what the project wants. But as Mary points out, habitual poachers may be driving an unknown number of people and machines away from GIMPS. The poach that seemed innocent when the checkin occured can have a negative impact. It is clear that poaching does not advance the stated goal of GIMPS at all. At best it brings in a result somewhat sooner than would otherwise happen. At worst it wastes machine time and drives users away from the project. Poaching is also completely unnecessary. Any machine used to test poached exponents could just as well be used to test legitimately checked-out exponents. The expiration mechanism guarantees that no checked-out exponents will be abandoned forever. Poaching a "slow" exponent on the chance that is might actually be abandoned is not useful. Revisting the checkout and checkin mechanism is not a trivial amount of work, and I'm not necessarily suggesting that. However, if it does get changed at some point, I would strongly suggest some anti-poaching mechanisms be added. For example, anyone who checks in an exponent that's assigned to someone else should NOT get credit immediately, but only after it expires or is given up voluntarily. If the owner eventually checks in the result, he should get the credit. _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
