Add licensing, source location, and GitHub handle information to properties

[mingness]

Describe the feature or enhancement

As suggested in https://github.com/processing/processing-contributions/issues/67, we could add an additional property for the library's license, suggesting the same license that Processing uses, LGPL v2.1.

Additionally, we could add optional properties for the repository URL and GitHub username(s) of the author(s) to release.properties.

Example

# (Optional) A URL to the source repository for your Library (e.g., https://github.com/yourUser/yourLibrary).
repositoryUrl=

# (Optional) A comma-separated list of GitHub usernames for the maintainers (e.g., maintainer1, maintainer2)
githubUsernames=

# (Optional) The SPDX identifier (see https://spdx.org/licenses/) for the license of your Library (e.g., LGPL-2.1-or-later)
licenseSpdx=

What is the use case?

Adding license information would allow us to provide users with clear information about the licensing terms of libraries, tools, and modes available in the Contribution Manager.

Adding repository and GitHub usernames would make it easier to contact authors if a library becomes broken or outdated, and allow for listing multiple maintainers properly.

Alternatives considered

No response

[SableRaf]

@mingness I've updated the issue above to reflect our conversation in https://github.com/processing/processing-contributions/issues/70

Let me know what you think!

[hamoid]

Is it possible to not assume GitHub is used? It's not the only platform for hosting git repos. I guess currently the automation is designed for GitHub, right? In that case I guess a GitHub user is probably a must. I was just thinking that it would be nice to allow alternatives.

[SableRaf]

Hey @hamoid, thanks for raising that.

Right now I have to manually track people down when their library breaks or disappears. The idea behind collecting GitHub usernames (as an optional field) is to make that easier in the future if we want to ping maintainers. Since we are managing contributions on this GitHub repository, usernames felt like useful information to ask for, but you're right that it assumes GitHub. We could clarify in the comments what this information will be used for, and offer the option to include an email address.

How about revising this section like so:

# If your library becomes broken, outdated, or unavailable, this information helps
# us reach out to you. Providing a GitHub username or email address is optional,
# but strongly encouraged to make maintenance easier in the future.
#
# Note: This information will be publicly visible on the processing-contributions
# repository
#
# (We will only use this information to contact you about issues related to your library.)

# (Optional) Comma-separated list of maintainer GitHub usernames.
githubUsernames=

# (Optional) Contact email address
maintainerEmail=

Let me know what you think.

[hamoid]

Not sure how to name it, but if it was something like gitUserURL, it would allow for https://gitlab.com/myUser or https://codeberg.org/myUser (although I don't know how would one actually contact the person... opening an issue in a random repo of theirs? 😅).

Asking for an e-mail sounds good. It would be nice if the list was not scrapable by bots.

[mingness]

We kinda already ask for email in the authors field - we could be more specific there perhaps

On Thu, May 8, 2025, 21:56 Abe Pazos @.***> wrote:

hamoid left a comment (processing/processing-library-template#87) https://github.com/processing/processing-library-template/issues/87#issuecomment-2864291570

Not sure how to name it, but if it was something like gitUserURL, it would allow for https://gitlab.com/myUser or https://codeberg.org/myUser (although I don't know how would one actually contact the person... opening an issue in a random repo of theirs? 😅).

Asking for an e-mail sounds good. It would be nice if the list was not scrapable by bots.

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