bug#41009: Add release date to the title page of Emacs manual (PDF)

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Sebastian Urban <mrsebastianurban@gmail.com>
>> Date: Fri, 1 May 2020 22:19:25 +0200
>> 
>> I would like to suggest adding a release date to the title page of PDF
>> version of the Emacs manual.  Five variants below, are all simple
>> change in EMACS.TEXI, and all would show date under the "EDITION
>> Edition, Updated for Emacs Version VERSION" line on the title page
>> (example in attached picture).
>
> Is it customary to show release dates on printed books?  I don't think
> I see that on title pages of a few books I tried.

Not as a general rule, I don't think.

But I don't think we should be too bound by that.  Such details can
vary widely depending on the subject matter and also by publisher.  So
I think we should feel free to decide on a standard that works best
for us.

For example, and I don't necessarily say that this is what we should
do, we could just stipulate that a printed Emacs manual (or pdf, etc.)
will have the same date as the release date of the Emacs version it is
for: "GNU Emacs 27.1, released on 2020-05-15".

> And how will the "release date" be defined, and by whom?

Maybe we could ask the FSF if they have a standard for this, and then
follow that?  They are the ones doing the print editions, after all.

There is also the question of who updates the date and when.  That
part should probably be automated so we don't accidentally ship an
Emacs version where the manual has an old date -- in which case no
date is clearly better.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas