Proposal to add `buildInstructions` in schema.org

During the last few months we have reviewed the additional 10 properties that aren’t in schema.org and are only in CodeMeta, buildInstructions is one of these properties.

The definition used on CodeMeta is:

link to installation instructions/documentation

Documentation is a main part in software development and is crucial in the understanding of the software and its functionalities. There are different types of documentation:

• user manual
• build instructions
• tutorials

Therefore, when describing a software project or artifact with metadata it is useful to have access to its documentation and its build instructions.

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Note:

In the crosswalk table at the moment this property isn’t used and it might be more appropriate to rename buildInstructions to documentationUrl before submitting the issue to schema.org.

Another option is to have both metadata properties (which are different).

[tmorrell]

I’ve closed my PR so there can be more discussion on how to implement this.

[arfon]

Another option is to have both metadata properties (which are different).

My vote would be to try and standardize on documentation and drop buildInstructions in the long run for two reasons:

1. It limits the size of the vocabulary.
2. IMO buildInstructions is just one example of a possible many subsets of a documentation property. So if we want to go in that direction, we should probably think about others.