Allow giving no authors.

doc/config.rst

@@ -935,7 +935,9 @@ These options influence manual page output.
      well as the name of the manual page (in the NAME section).
    * *description*: description of the manual page.  This is used in the NAME
      section.
-   * *authors*: A list of strings with authors, or a single string.
+   * *authors*: A list of strings with authors, or a single string.  Can be
+     an empty string or list if you do not want to automatically generate
+     an AUTHORS section in the manual page.
    * *section*: The manual page section.  Used for the output file name as well
      as in the manual page header.
 

sphinx/builders/manpage.py

@@ -58,7 +58,10 @@ class ManualPageBuilder(Builder):
         for info in self.config.man_pages:
             docname, name, description, authors, section = info
             if isinstance(authors, basestring):
+                if authors:
                     authors = [authors]
+                else:
+                    authors = []
 
             targetname = '%s.%s' % (name, section)
             self.info(darkgreen(targetname) + ' { ', nonl=True)

sphinx/writers/manpage.py

@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@ class ManualPageTranslator(BaseTranslator):
         # docinfo set by man_pages config value
         self._docinfo['title'] = self.document.settings.title
         self._docinfo['subtitle'] = self.document.settings.subtitle
+        if self.document.settings.authors:
+            # don't set it if no author given
             self._docinfo['author'] = self.document.settings.authors
         self._docinfo['manual_section'] = self.document.settings.section