Re: version vs edition numbers in Emacs manuals

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2019 17:35:53 -0700
> 
> I noticed Glenn's comment at the start of doc/emacs/emacs.texi that 
> EDITION (which was "Seventeenth") offers nothing that EMACSVER 
> ("27.0.50") does not. I'd go further and say that it's a net minus, 
> since it's confusing to have competing version numbers for the same thing.
> 
> Although separating software version numbers from book edition numbers 
> made sense in the old days when most users had only low-resolution 
> displays and/or printers, nowadays the practice appears to be more 
> trouble than it's worth. So I installed the attached patch, to switch 
> the main Emacs manuals to simple version numbers like "27.0". Comments 
> welcome.

I've reverted this.

We cannot unilaterally remove this stuff, we must talk to the FSF
publishing people and have their agreement first, because they will
need to know it is now their responsibility to keep track of the
edition number.  The edition appears on the book's cover: e.g., my
copy of the latest Emacs Manual says "Eighteenth edition for GNU Emacs
version 26.1".

Richard, who we should talk to about changing this?