RE: Possessive apostrophe with singular nouns ending in "s"

[Drew Adams]

> If the "subject" is Emacs - It is Emacs'(s) manual right? - then the
> above controversy can altogether be avoided by dropping 
> self-references altogether. Even if there is a need, one can use
> runtime etc. and still make herself understood by the reader.

Good point.

In fact, many (most?) technical writing style guidelines call for avoiding such
possessives.  It is, I think, increasingly common to see, e.g., "the object
name" instead of "the object's name".  (I have no possessive apostrophes in the
doc I write, for instance.)