1321519 - manifest.json creator(s), developer(s), contributor(s), translator(s) properties, do they exist, are they documented?

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: Add-ons, defect, P5)

Description

[Leif-AMO]

:: Developer Documentation Request

      Request Type: Correction
     Gecko Version: unspecified
 Technical Contact: 

:: Details

The XUL/Overlay, Bootstrap, and SDK APIs all included the creator, developers and contributors properties in the install.rdf or package.json, respectively.

However, the current WebExtensions API manifest.json documentation [1] makes no mention of any of these.

An old blog post [2] mentions the creator property, but not developers or contributors, but does not describe any details or provide usage examples.  Nowhere is there a reference to a public discussion (bug report, blog, discourse, etc) that gives a rationale for the removal (or non-implementation) of these properties, or if they exist but are accessed differently.

If these properties exist, document them.  If not, tell us they don't exist, explain why, and cite references to relevant discussion.  If the information exists but is accessed, stored, modified, managed in a different way, please indicate that, and either explain on the manifest.json page if it is brief, or create a new page.

This would alleviate confusion of add-on developers who, for example, may wish to manage the information and display it in a custom manner.  It was previously done in a simple text file as a manifest's property.

XPIProvder.jsm [3] seems to indicate that these properties still exist somewhere, but I don't know how that is related to WebExtensions.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json
[2] https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/03/11/webextensions-in-firefox-47/
[3] https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/mozapps/extensions/internal/XPIProvider.jsm#189-191

Comment 1

[Leif-AMO]

Bug # 1282977 [1] seems mostly related, discusses the proposed removal of creator, and the eventual change to author, but does not cover the removal of developers, contributors or translators.  Public attributions are an important part of free software projects.  As Google or the W3C make decisions to do away with these things as "clutter", once again, Mozilla seems a very eager follower, not a leader.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1282977

Comment 2

[BMO Automation]

MDN Web Docs' bug reporting has now moved to GitHub. From now on, please file content bugs at https://github.com/mdn/sprints/issues/ and platform bugs at https://github.com/mdn/kuma/issues/.