Re: How to cite the Emacs and Calc manuals?

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>]

On 2014-12-29, at 14:35, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

>> - what is the author?
>
> Usually the question is "who", but admittedly, the "what" is also an
> interesting question in this case.

Oops.  My bad.  And I like to think that my English is not bad...

OTOH, given what Calc is, you're right: in this particular case, one
might wonder /what/ Dave Gillespie is.  “An alien” is one answer that
comes to mind; personally, I like to think of him as of a robot, in
Asimov's sense, so an entity who's been living (or maybe “functioning”?)
for a few thousand years, and working on Calc for the last five
centuries or so (having predicted – or been told by Hari Seldon – that
at some point, RMS will write Emacs).

;-)

>>   It says on the first page: "This manual, also
>>   written (mostly) by Dave Gillespie [...]" - so is it "Dave Gillespie"
>>   or "Dave Gillespie et al." or what?
>
> I think for Calc, "Dave Gillespie et al." would be fine, yes.

Thanks.

> For the Emacs manual, OTOH, the authorship is a lot more diluted.
> I guess you could opt for "Richard Stallman et al." and there wouldn't
> be too many objections.
>
>> - what is the year of publication?  It says on the first page:
>> "Copyright (C) 1990-1991, 2001-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc." -
>> so is it 2013?
>
> Pick the version Emacs whose manual you want to cite, then use the
> release date of that version as the date of publication.

I didn’t think of it – good idea, thanks again!

>> - what is the publisher?  I guess FSF, but they don't have it in their
>>   dead trees web page shop.
>
> Yes, the publisher is the FSF, regardless if they only publish it
> electronically.

OK.

>> - not to mention the place of publishing (usually it's the name of a
>>   city).
>
> You can probably leave this blank.  If you really insist on choosing
> a place, Boston would make some kind of sense.

I don’t insist, I was just wondering.

>         Stefan

Thanks a lot!

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University