new metadata attribute: authors (PACMAN-1159)

[trombik]

Related area

idf_component.yml

Is your feature request related to a problem?

The metadata attributes include maintainers. However, some authors are not necessarily a maintainer. For instance, you forked someone's code and ported it to ESP32. In this case, the original author is NOT a maintainer. Still, the original author deserves attribution as a licensee.

Describe the solution you'd like

Add new metadata attribute: authors.

The attribute is optional.

The value of authors is an array of string. The string can be anything, just like maintainers.

Another candidate is copyrights.

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional context

We have some codes derived from other projects. Our licenses mentions original authors in component's LICENSE file. It is not strictly necessary, however, I feel guilty when a component's metadata does not mention authors.

What do you think?

I have checked existing list of Feature requests and I have provided enough information.

• I confirm I have checked existing list of Feature requests and I have provided enough information.

[kumekay]

@trombik Thank you for your request,
I agree that it's important to give credits for authors,
however I would suggest a slightly different solution,
There is a new (preview) tool for SAM generation for ESP-IDF projects. It can source information from optional sbom field of the idf_component.yml,

More information:
https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf-sbom

At this moment we do not show the data from SBOM on the component page, but it will provide a more consistent approach than addition of the authors field.