Could you point me to the page that explains GNU conventions/guidelines
for shell scripts.
Portable Shell node in the Autoconf manual.
But even if the script was completely cleaned up, there's still the
other problems. Norbert was correct that he's already assigned changes
for the Texinfo package, so that part is fine, but 1) the man page
documentation is inadequate IMNSHO, and 2) I remain greatly worried
about maintaining such a thing in perpetuity, making it work with all
distros, etc. The game does not seem worth the candle. I think it
should just stay uninstalled.