Morally wrong because no one, however gifted, can claim personal possession of scientific knowledge. Patents. yes; but mathematics has yet to be patented.
Mentally unbalanced because direct and indirect evidence over the last 20 years indicate that this is the case. In particular no person of sound mind would issue such an ultimatum.
However since then the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques has frozen publication of his important Memoir "Récoltes et Semailles"; Springer Verlag has frozen re-publication in a new, more easily readable format, of his SGA seminar lectures; and the Grothendieck Circle has withdraw the original French version of Récoltes et Semailles from its website.
It's an ill will that blows nobody any good; and opportunity rarely knocks, if ever. This is a golden opportunity for me to flog my English translation of the first 200 pages of Recoltes et Semailles, and at the same time issue an appeal to some foundation or publisher to pay me top dollar for a full translation of the 1,300 page masterwork!
The translation would be "unauthorized" of course. Hasn't Kitty Kelly come out with a new unauthorized biography of Oprah Winfrey? If Kitty can defy the awesome public profile of a great celebrity like Oprah, what chance is there for Alexandre Grothendieck, whose name is unknown to more than 99.9999 % of the world's population (and who is assuredly too devoted to his hermit existence to involve himself in the day-to-day details of frivolous lawsuits) to mount a determined assault on the translation of a book he himself sent to 400 persons around the world in the 80's, with particular attention to those individuals whom he himself abuses, libels, insults and denigrates in over 1300 pages?
I used to send the print copy on request, but can no longer afford to do so.
Contact me at rlisker@yahoo.com., and/or send a check to Dr. Roy Lisker/8 Liberty Street #306/Middletown, CT 06457. Foreign requests will be dealt with on an individual basis, given the difficulties of sending small amounts of money from another country to here.
All editions or transmission of such texts which have been produced in the past without my express permission, or shall be made in the future as long as I am alive, which will or has been done in opposition to my will, as it is precisely expressed herein, will be deemed illegitimate in my eyes.
To the degree that I become aware of them, I will insist to the makers of these pirate editions, or any other publications including, without my express permission, texts from my own hand (apart from possible citations of a few lines at most), that they immediately withdraw these works from the marketplace; that the directors of libraries holding copies of my works, that these works be removed at once.
If my intentions as an author, as clearly expressed here, are treated as dead-letter, then let the shame of their contempt for me fall upon the heads of those responsible for those illegitimate editions, and on the directors of the libraries that harbor them. (From the moment that one or the other be informed of my intentions)
I am a private individual, not a corporation.It is well-known that Dr. Grothendieck signed over all the rights to his works to Dr. Jean Malgoire more than a decade ago.He does not speak of preparing any sort of lawsuit, rather he asks us to 'avoid the shame' of treating him with 'contempt'. I don't hold him in contempt, therefore I doubt very much that I will find myself gripped by a sense of shame.Sincerely Yours, Dr. Roy Lisker