Reconsider project.properties and META-INF

[michaelbausor]

Our current use of project.properties is the cause of this issue: #2411

It seems like the way we are using project.properties may be unnecessary, or otherwise we may be able to use META-INF, which would be a cleaner/more idiomatic solution.

[garrettjonesgoogle]

Closing this issue because #2411 is closed - we aren't using project.properties any more.