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Did Grothendieck himself not explicitly object to any re-publishing or translation of his manuscripts? https://tqft.net/misc/Grothendieck's%20Declaration.pdf h
by heinrichhartman 7y ago
Did Grothendieck himself not explicitly object to any re-publishing or translation of his manuscripts?
https://tqft.net/misc/Grothendieck's%20Declaration.pdf https://tqft.net/misc/Grothendieck's%20Declaration.pdf
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Declaration of intent of non-publication
I do not intend to publish or republish any work or text of which I am the author, in any form whatsoever, printed or electronic, whether in full or in excerpts, texts of personal nature, of scientific character, or otherwise, or letters addressed to anybody, and any translation of texts of which I am the author. Any edition or dissemination of such texts which have been made in the past without my consent, or which will be made in the future and as long as I live, is against my will expressly specified here and is unlawful in my eyes. As I learn of these, I will ask the person responsible for such pirated editions, or of any other publication containing without permission texts from my hand (beyond possible citations of a few lines each), to remove from commerce these books; and librarians holding such books to remove these books from those libraries.
If my intentions, clearly expressed here, should go unheeded, then the shame of it falls on those responsible for the illegal editions, and those responsible for the libraries concerned (as soon as they have been informed of my intention).
Written at my home, January 3, 2010,
Alexandre Grothendieck.
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- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago´...or which will be made in the future and as long as I live,...´
- emptybits 7y agoThey acknowledge this in the document: "If it seems like we are over-eager to defend ourselves because we know that we are somehow in the wrong, it is because we are, at least partially. Working on this translation has meant going against Grothendieck’s explicit requests, and for that we are sorry. We only hope that the freedom of knowledge is an excusable defense."
- auntienomen 7y agoThere comes a point at which a book belongs more to its readers than to its author. EGA is well past that point. Try imagining the world we'd live in now if Euclid had managed to suppress all copies of his _Geometry_.
- wolfgke 7y ago> There comes a point at which a book belongs more to its readers than to its author. EGA is well past that point. Try imagining the world we'd live in now if Euclid had managed to suppress all copies of his _Geometry_. Tell this to the politicians who created the copyright laws.
- JadeNB 7y ago> Tell this to the politicians who created the copyright laws. I am sure Grothendieck would be on the front lines of those castigating such politicians. He made this request not to ensure personal gain, but to express his profound disappointment with and disengagement from society as he saw it.
- zentiggr 7y agoI have to just lightly wonder why he would have written anything, if he was so adamantly opposed to any copies in any form. Unless I misread that and he only intended to restrict copies "without my consent". Hence as broad and varied distribution as he solely wished, and no others. I think I read that initially as a fear of being misunderstood, since every new copy would have a non-zero chance of typos or changes. Or I have that entirely wrong, which is the more likely case. Curious.
- JadeNB 7y agoThis was written well after he had done the work for which he is remembered. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retirement_into_reclusion_and_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retirem... . That is, at the time the work was done, it was not his intention to limit copying.
- williamstein 7y agoThis guy also hosts a large archive of Grothendieck's work, scans people have made and sent me over the years, etc.: https://wstein.org/sga/ https://wstein.org/sga/
- Koshkin 7y agoIt’s OK.