FREE-PRODUCTS OF FINITARY SKEW LINEAR-GROUPS

We give two very different proofs of the following result. Let {G(lamb da):lambda is an element of Lambda} be a family of finitary skew linea r groups of the same characteristic p greater than or equal to 0. Then the free product of the G(lambda) is isomorphic to some finitary skew linear group of characteristic p. This extends recent work of R. J. H . Minty on the skew linear case and of O. Puglisi on the finitary line ar case.