Grothendieck and SGA

Grothendieck and SGA

[David Roberts]

Hi all,

apparently Grothendieck has requested that work on republishing SGA stop:

http://www.math.polytechnique.fr/~laszlo/sga4.html

Does anyone know anything about this?

David Roberts


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Re: Grothendieck and SGA

[Scott Morrison]

See http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/grothendiecks-letter/
for a poor english translation of Grothendieck's letter, and a link to
a tex'd version of the apparent original.

best,
scott morrison

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 16:36, David Roberts
<droberts@maths.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> apparently Grothendieck has requested that work on republishing SGA stop:
>
> http://www.math.polytechnique.fr/~laszlo/sga4.html
>
> Does anyone know anything about this?
>
> David Roberts
>


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Re: Grothendieck and SGA

[Dusko Pavlovic]

there are several great authors who requested that their Nachlass be
destroyed, and their published work never republished. but we only
know of those whose requests went unheeded.

-- dusko

On Feb 24, 2010, at 5:28 PM, Keith Harbaugh wrote:

> Two naive and possibly inappropriate questions:
>
> 1. Does anyone know the legal status of such a request?
> (Under French, UK, US, or UN law.)
>
> 2. Is there any precedent for such a request?




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Re: Grothendieck and SGA

[Toby Bartels]

Keith Harbaugh wrote two questions, the first of which is:

>1. Does anyone know the legal status of such a request?
>(Under French, UK, US, or UN law.)

As people have discussed at the Secret Blogging Seminar
http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/grothendiecks-letter/
(that's the same link that appeared earlier in this thread),
Grothendieck doesn't seem to be relying on the legal system.
Nevertheless, since you ask:

In every signatory to the Berne Convention (which is most of the world,
including the wealthy countries where almost all mathematics is produced now),
anything whatsoever is automatically copyright once in a "fixed form",
for at least 50 years after the death of an individual author,
unless there is some special rule that says otherwise.
If Grothendieck has ever given someone permission to publish something,
he probably cannot withdraw it; otherwise, it is copyright already.

But the details (what is fixed?, what is permission?, what is publishing?)
can get complicated, which is how intellectual property lawyers make money.
If Grothendieck and his heirs aren't going to sue or complain to the police,
then there may be ~no~ legal consequences.  But there may be fear of such,
or else (as Grothendieck writes in his letter) a moral "shame" ("honte").


--Toby


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Re: Grothendieck and SGA

[Keith Harbaugh]

Two naive and possibly inappropriate questions:

1. Does anyone know the legal status of such a request?
(Under French, UK, US, or UN law.)

2. Is there any precedent for such a request?


On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 8:02 PM, Scott Morrison <scott@tqft.net> wrote:

> See http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/grothendiecks-letter/
> for a poor english translation of Grothendieck's letter, and a link to
> a tex'd version of the apparent original.
>
> best,
> scott morrison
>
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 16:36, David Roberts
> <droberts@maths.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > apparently Grothendieck has requested that work on republishing SGA stop:
> >
> > http://www.math.polytechnique.fr/~laszlo/sga4.html<http://www.math.polytechnique.fr/%7Elaszlo/sga4.html>
> >
> > Does anyone know anything about this?
> >
> > David Roberts
> >

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