From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Fwd: version vs edition numbers in Emacs manuals Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:42:09 -0800 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <9f91d45c-d1c9-da2d-c4bf-20f22e4a59bb@cs.ucla.edu> References: <87h83brvxg.fsf@wjsullivan.net> <0a820310-d4ce-d9ab-32b0-5d22c00d2122@cs.ucla.edu> <87sgmvozz9.fsf@wjsullivan.net> <834kz67ite.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="12577"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.2.0 Cc: johns@fsf.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Nov 14 20:42:38 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1iVL0n-00032x-8Y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 20:42:37 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33204 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1iVL0l-0005p3-It for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:42:35 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:60740) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1iVL0U-0005oC-Pf for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:42:20 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1iVL0R-00078E-Fc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:42:17 -0500 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:39306) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1iVL0P-00075c-Bl; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 14:42:13 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F15B1605EB; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:42:11 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id eTSw3ZHNy0mZ; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:42:10 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3668416060E; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:42:10 -0800 (PST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id FlgxJbCvr9At; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:42:10 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from Penguin.CS.UCLA.EDU (Penguin.CS.UCLA.EDU [131.179.64.200]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 181A51605EB; Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:42:10 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <834kz67ite.fsf@gnu.org> Content-Language: en-US X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:242194 Archived-At: On 11/14/19 4:18 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > I didn't see John's response, not sure why. Can someone forward it to > me? Sure, here it is: > Paul Eggert writes: > >> On 11/10/19 6:25 PM, John Sullivan wrote: >>> Can you fill me in more on how they are messed up? Thanks for your help. >> >> For example, the FSF bookstore web page >> >> currently advertises the GNU Emacs 26.1 manual as the "18th edition, >> v. 26.1" and the spine of the printed manual says "Eighteenth edition >> for GNU Emacs version 26.1". >> >> In contrast, the online manual >> says on its >> title page "Seventeenth Edition, Updated for Emacs Version 26.3". That >> is, the online manual says it is for an *earlier* manual edition, but >> for a *later* Emacs version, than the printed manual. >> >> The edition number is incorrect and misleading, since the online >> manual is in fact more up-to-date than the printed manual. So I'd like >> to remove the edition number from the online manual. That way, the >> online manual won't have incorrect information, and the people >> printing the book can use whatever edition number they like without >> having to coordinate with the Emacs developers. >> > > That makes sense to me. The Emacs developers do prepare the print > version for us. We might like to keep an online version that matches the > print version. So maybe the solution could be to have two online > versions, one that corresponds to print and is only updated when a new > print version is made, and the other is the one that the developers with > each release or whenever they feel is appropriate? And that latter > version would not have any edition number. We wouldn't have any problem > with the primary canonical manual link > (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/emacs.html) being used for > the online-only version. What do you think? Getting back to Eli's email: > we should have a separate target in the Makefile, and we should maintain > the last printed edition in some separate file, because no one will > remember that otherwise. A separate Makefile target would be fine, but the separate file should be something that the FSF Press maintains. Having the edition numbers be in a file that Emacs developers maintain would continue to cause glitches like the ones noted above. The FSF Press is downstream from developers, they generate edition numbers at their convenience not developers', and they can and should be the ones who keep track of the edition numbers that they maintain. > The fact that some manuals use EDITION while others use VERSION also > doesn't make this very clean, IMO. Yes, that area could easily be made more systematic. For example, we could systematically use just EDITION and DATE for all the FSF Press-maintained info.