[QUOTE=cheesehead;300420]IIRC I saw a comment by Bobrecki to the effect that (what follows is my paraphrase!) he was reluctant to use any information about factors that GIMPS already has in its database, because that sort of "belonged" to GIMPS.[/QUOTE]

Using Will Edgington as the source and destination of factors should solve any concerns of ownership. Will covers all exponents, not just the prime ones of some currently feasible size.

Do we know for sure one way or another if George and/or Scott have already been in contact with BOINC heads?

It makes sense to me that the project leaders should be the primary point of discussions.

[QUOTE=petrw1;300461]Do we know for sure one way or another if George and/or Scott have already been in contact with BOINC heads?

It makes sense to me that the project leaders should be the primary point of discussions.[/QUOTE]


I did post in the forums once or twice that GIMPS would be happy to work cooperatively. I even pointed him to the web page that can access all of GIMPS TF data so that he doesn't reproduce our work. I've not had a positive response.

We can try a direct email approach instead. I'm not hopeful.

I agree with Cheesehead that a belligerent approach is disrespectful and unlikely to produce anything positive.

P.S. I just checked his website again. They now have a web page to download known factors. They appear to have loaded GIMPS' factoring data. I don't know if their database contains factors that GIMPS does not have.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;300416]<...snip...>
If a serious organisation manages to achieve some serious independent checking/verification of the results which GIMPS has already determined, that will significantly improve the confidence in those results
<...snip...>[/QUOTE]
I would really doubt that. I have read all the "good Samaritan"-style speeches posted before in the current thread, and I don't wanna go bitchy, but those are "serious independent bla bla" as I am the discoverer of the 50th known mersenne prime. They are noting but little thieves up to now, as there is no way they could re-discover all the [U][B]BIG[/B][/U] factors GIMPS has. The guys knew about gimps, they STARTED their project from a [U]copy of the GIMPS database [/U]containing all the factors already known to GIMPS. Well, I am not advocatind that someone should re-do all the TF for the exponents with already known factors, this would be stupid and a completely waste of resources. But at least a mention it should be done somewhere like "we keep our database sync-ed with GIMPS database". And if you start by "stealing" factors, then I won't trust you in keeping "independent" LL residues either...

I sent Bobrecki a PM. We'll see where that leads.

I think you won't get any feedback from him. Look at this post: [URL]http://mersenneathome.net/forum_thread.php?id=79[/URL]

and this one

[URL]http://mersenneathome.net/forum_thread.php?id=84[/URL]

Anyway, a thread was already started here a few years ago by Greg. [url]http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=14416[/url]
Carlos

This [URL="http://mersenneathome.net/forum_thread.php?id=6"]one thread[/URL] gives a good window in the project leader's mindset.

What's frightening is that people graze there because statistically that project gives more credit than other BOINC programs. (They don't care what the project does, just care for a bright shiny badgy thingies with some credit numbers.) I wonder if there exists any oversight from BOINC? Any guidelines for credit?

What if I wrote an implementation of BOINCified FRACTRAN VM, load it with Conway's prime generating [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRACTRAN#Conway.27s_prime_algorithm"]program[/URL], and then registered it at BOINC and gave everyone [strike]twice[/strike] ten times (why not? let's live a little) more credit than any other project? Tomorrow I would be swimming in contributors!

[QUOTE=Batalov;300489]This [URL="http://mersenneathome.net/forum_thread.php?id=6"]one thread[/URL] gives a good window in the project leader's mindset.

What's frightening is that people graze there because statistically that project gives more credit than other BOINC programs. (They don't care what the project does, just care for a bright shiny badgy thingies with some credit numbers.) I wonder if there exists any oversight from BOINC? Any guidelines for credit?

What if I wrote an implementation of BOINCified FRACTRAN VM, load it with Conway's prime generating [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRACTRAN#Conway.27s_prime_algorithm"]program[/URL], and then registered it at BOINC and gave everyone [strike]twice[/strike] ten times (why not? let's live a little) more credit than any other project? Tomorrow I would be swimming in contributors![/QUOTE]
Interesting. Would you be willing to try? :cmd:

It seems that if we make a concerted appeal to work together, especially with an official representative of GIMPS (i.e. George) that we can probably work something out. Let's see if George's PM gets anywhere. (Anybody speak Polish? :razz:)

If you ever wanted to be [strike]John Malkovich[/strike] R.D. Silverman for one hour (yes, really!), try going there and write on their forum. It's a PORTAL! Everyone's experience in [strike]John Malkovich[/strike] R.D. Silverman's head could be different, of course, but don't be surprized if "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" will come out at the end of your typing and then you will bang your head on the keyboard repeatedly. It is softer than the wall. I do recommend the keyboard.

Read hkbm's epic windmill struggle in that thread - and weep.
:soapbox:

(What I mean, with apologies to the real-life [strike]John Malkovich[/strike] R.D. Silverman, is that you will feel that an average mersenneforumer to their forum is like R.D. Silverman to an average mersenneforumer. And yes, prepare to be called a troll, too, over there on that forum.)

[QUOTE=Batalov;300489] I wonder if there exists any oversight from BOINC? Any guidelines for credit?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, there are loose guidelines, basically be comparable to SETI and Einstein. However, since BOINC is an open platform, following those guidelines is optional. The only penalty is that you probably won't get included in the list of projects displayed by default in the client.

My two pee worth
 

If [EMAIL="M@home"]M@home[/EMAIL] encourages participants less bitchy than some of us (:smile:)
then at least explain that George has the definitive(?) database re the state of the art.

David