Publishing instructions out of date #188

Affected version

HEAD

Bug description

Per Gemini:

To discover, aggregate, or publish RDF metadata describing open-source software projects (using DOAP—Description of a Project—or similar ontologies), the current ecosystem relies on decentralized hosting and modern web registries rather than centralized DOAP-specific directories.

Here is how you can publish or locate this metadata today:

1. Publishing Open-Source Metadata

Instead of registering a project in a standalone directory, publish the DOAP file directly within the project's ecosystem and rely on standard Web of Data mechanisms:

• Host in the Root Repository: Store the project's doap.rdf or doap.ttl directly in the root of its public repository (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, or Codeberg).
• Embed Structured Data (JSON-LD): Embed project metadata using JSON-LD with the [schema.org SoftwareApplication](https://schema.org/SoftwareApplication?utm_source=gemini) or [SoftwareSourceCode](https://schema.org/SoftwareSourceCode?utm_source=gemini) vocabularies in the HTML head of the project's documentation or landing page:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "SoftwareSourceCode",
  "name": "ProjectName",
  "codeRepository": "https://github.com/example/project",
  "programmingLanguage": "Java",
  "license": "https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0"
}
</script>

Search engine crawlers automatically index schema.org metadata.

2. Discovering and Querying Open-Source Metadata

To retrieve structured metadata across open-source software without defunct directories:

• Wikidata SPARQL Endpoint: Wikidata maintains structured metadata on thousands of open-source software projects, including properties like homepages, repository locations, software licenses, programming languages, and developers.
• Endpoint: [https://query.wikidata.org/](https://query.wikidata.org/)
• Example SPARQL query for open-source Java projects on Wikidata:

SELECT ?item ?itemLabel ?repo WHERE {
  ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q7397;          # instance of software
        wdt:P275 ?license;        # has a license
        wdt:P277 wd:Q251;         # programming language: Java
        wdt:P1324 ?repo.          # source code repository
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
}
LIMIT 100

• Package Manager Registries & APIs: Ecosystem-specific package managers expose structured metadata natively via REST APIs (e.g., Maven Central Search API, PyPI JSON API, or npm Registry API).
• Software Heritage Graph: The Software Heritage project archives public source code repositories along with their metadata, accessible via their Web API and public datasets.