Subject: categories: The Dubuc Topos

From: Marta BUNGE <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 08:22:36 -0400 (EDT)

In response to the note by Eduardo Dubuc, I would like to urge the workers
in the field of SDG who use this topos (and it is hardly easy to avoid
doing so!) to name it the "Dubuc topos". I myself have used several other
names for it, such as G (for germ determined) or \tilde(B^op) for the site
of definition, and this includes my papers in the JPPA on Synthetic
Aspects of C-infinity mappings (one with F. Gago), my paper with M. Heggie
in Contemporary Mathematics, and even in our joint paper B-D, Local
concepts, where we called it G. In fact, this is perfectly appropriate and
I always referred to the sources.
 
Therefore, it may thus seem like a strange request, and even more strange
that I agree to this request at this point (assuming that I will ever
write anything again in SDG!), but I understand it perfectly. It is
annoying to see one's work being appropriated by others who, little by
little contribute to the obliteration of  any direct reference (except pro
forma) to the originator of these ideas. This is definitely wrong and has
done damage which may not be too late to repair.
 
I have been a witness to the developments that Eduardo Dubuc  relates in
his note and  I herewith corroborate their authenticity. Moreover, I have
related these very facts to many people, including one of the authors of
the Moerdijk-Reyes team, who blamed the other one for it! I have also said
as much in refereeing papers by the Moerdijk-Reyes team, with copies to
the authors. This is not a fib of someone's imagination, as may be easy to
infer not knowing the facts or the people involved.
 
Something has now triggered it all back, it is unimportant what did it.
What matters is that this sad and obscure aspect of the history of
categories and of our group has never come up into the open. Now that the
author himself has felt the need to do so, I have no problem supporting
him and wishing that at least from now on his work will be given the
credit it deserves.
 
Marta Bunge