Open Source Protocol
About
The Open Source Protocol is a way of telling developers where to access the source code for your website, if the source code is hosted in an open source repository on the public internet.
The OS Protocol uses metatags. To include an open source metatag on your website, simply add <meta /> tags for the following properties:
os:repo- This should be a link to the repository web page, for instance the project page on GitHub, Bitbucket, or Sourceforge.os:rcs_type- This should be the name of the revision control system used, for instance Git, Mercurial, Bazaar.os:src- This is the repository url that can be used to obtain a copy of the source.
This is not a place to link to code that is described on your website; rather, this is for the code for the actual website. That way, if anyone reading your website sees an error - a spelling mistake, broken CSS, etc. - or something they want to examine - a cool paralax library, etc. - they can quickly fetch the source code.
The os protocol is loosely based on the Open Graph protocol, which in turn is based on RDFa. os stands for "open source".
A link element must be added in order to adhere to the standard. This is similar to the now deprecated profile attribute, which used to go into the <HEAD />.
Example
<link rel="profile" href="https://osprotocol.com" />
<meta property="os:repo" content="https://github.com/RichardLitt/open-source-protocol" />
<meta property="os:rcs_type" content="git" />
<meta property="os:src" content="[email protected]:RichardLitt/open-source-protocol.git" />Optional tags
Other tags that can be used:
os:issue- This links to a place to report issues for the website.os:commit- This is the commit id that the current site is based upon, as that may not always be the same as HEAD.os:branch- This is the branch where the live code for the website lives.os:server:*- If there's separate custom code for a server (for example, a server written using node.js), and the code for which doesn't include the website content source as a submodule or mention it in some other way, then the tagsos:server:*can be used to separately specify the server code. Here * denotes all the otheros:*tag subtypes specified in this document.
Examples
<meta property="os:issue" content="https://github.com/RichardLitt/open-source-protocol/issues" />
<meta property="os:commit" content="1sda73d" />
<meta property="os:branch" content="gh-pages" />Shields
For use in the repository, to show your compliance and spread the word:
Participating Websites
This is a list of websites which have adopted this protocol. If you know of any others, please add them here.
Related Projects
Projects building on OSP:
- OSMT-extension Chrome extension to check for OSMT compliance. WIP.
Contribute
This is a work in progress. Please open an issue to discuss how the Open Source Protocol can be improved. PRs are encouraged!
If you use the OSProtocol, please add your site above. Also, tell your friends.
To automatically copy README.md from master to gh-pages, use the hook on gh-pages in dev. (Note: It doesn't like git add -p).