Grothendieck wants to prevent publication of his texts

[anhinga_anhinga]

http://sbseminar.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/grothendiecks-letter/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grothendieck#Retirement_into_reclusion

It's an interesting question -- to what extent a person owns his/her writings (not by law, but morally), especially if those writings have already become an integral and important part of the overall culture?

Comments

[spamsink.livejournal.com]

Society has no obligation to cater to delusions whatsoever, and the idea to have any control beyond the legal over one's immaterial productions is a definite delusion.

[bravchick.livejournal.com]

Do you ask whether it is moral to forbid publishing your own works, or whether it is moral to publish works of somebody else without the author's permission?

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

No, it's a more narrow question.

Of course, one can withhold one's work for many various reasons (although we might regret this choice, and it might be a moral problem for the author in some cases), and one should ask for permission.

But here we have a situation where publication was going for a long time, and it is obvious that the author knew this and did not mind (or, at least, did not mind enough to voice an objection). Meanwhile, the work acquired its own life, and its own relationship with the community, and became a part of our world.

What I am really asking is it moral for us, at this stage, to ignore the belated objections of the author, and to continue to use and disseminate this work? It is, in some sense, a pragmatic question.

One can also ask whether it is moral for Grothendieck to do something like this now, but I don't think there is any need for us to judge him, so this is not the question I am asking.