Bug#1104854: binNMUs can cause ma-same violations in eg manpages

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> writes:

> .TH "tld_check_4" 3 "1.11" "libidn" "libidn"
> 
> So this puts the version number in the timestamp field and the project
> name (without version number) in the field where the project name and
> version number usually goes.

[...]

> Reviewing this now, I think a slightly better .TH for this man page
> would be something like:

> .TH "tld_check_4" 3 "1.11" "libidn" "Libidn Programmer's Manual"

I would recommend at least considering:

.TH "tld_check_4" 3 "libidn" "1.11" "libidn"

(or "Libidn Programmer's Manual" if you really want but I don't think the
extra words add anything).

What goes into what part of the footer is not very standardized, so it
probably doesn't really matter, but this puts the version in the left
bottom footer, which is reasonably common, and puts the package name in
the center of both the header and the footer, which is pleasingly
symmetric at least to my eye.

Another option would be:

.TH "tld_check_4 3 "" "libidn 1.11" "libidn"

which leaves the center footer empty.

I just noticed this note that I wrote down a long time ago and forgot
about. I'm not sure if this is still an issue on any platform that you
care about.

    Note that some system "an" macro sets assume that the centered footer
    will be a modification date and will prepend something like "Last
    modified: ".

I vaguely think this was a thing on Solaris at some point? But I'm not
sure.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>