Re: [Bug-gnulib] 4-gary-version-etc-full-author-string.patch

[Jim Meyering]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
> "Gary V. Vaughan" <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> The attached gives the translator enough context to make a good
>> translation of the whole sentence.
>
> This is a good idea, though (sigh) incompatible with existing usage.
> I think Jim is a major user of that package though, so I'd like
> to hear his opinion.

I'm reluctant to prepend the string, `Written by ' to the value of
AUTHORS in each of the 90 programs in the coreutils.  And to change
the name of the symbol to e.g. WRITTEN_BY.  And update the uses.
Not that it'd be hard to do (it'd be easy/mechanical), but I want
to be sure it's worthwhile.  This information appears only in
the --version output, afaik.

Can you give an actual example in which the translation of the
separate strings cannot be made to work properly?

> Since we're changing the usage, shouldn't we also change the name of
> that variable from "authors" to "written_by", in both version-etc.c
> and version-etc.h?