Publishing Gradle plugin marker: can't set pom name and description

[gabrielittner]

I want to set the pom name and description like this to satisfy the maven central requirements:

publishing {
    publications.all {
        pom {
            name = 'My Library'
            description = 'A concise description of my library'
            url = 'http://www.example.com/library'
        }
    }
}

Expected Behavior

Generated poms should contain:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project ...>
  ...
  <name>My Library</name>
  <description>A concise description of my library</description>
  <url>http://www.example.com/library</url>
</project>

Current Behavior

The 3 lines exist in the actual artifact's pom. However the pom for the plugin marker does not contain the name and description.

Context

This worked in Gradle 4.10.3. On newer versions it is broken. Tested it with 5.0, 5.6.4, 6.0 and 6.2.

Because of this issue it's not possible to publish plugin markers to maven central.

Steps to Reproduce

This is a sample project with publishing set up. If you run publish it will write to build/repo:
publish-sample.zip

[gabrielittner]

This seems to be a working workaround:

myPublication.pom.withXml { pom ->
    pom.asNode().appendNode("name", "the name")
    pom.asNode().appendNode("description", "the description")
}

[gabrielittner]

This is still happening in Gradle 6.8.2

[gabrielittner]

This is still happening in Gradle 7.2. Would you accept a fix that only executes these lines when declaration.getDisplayName() and declaration.getDescription() are respectively not null?

[DavidGregory084]

I have found another workaround for this:
https://github.com/opencastsoftware/gradle-build-info/blob/main/build.gradle.kts#L96=

You have to do something similar to get signing of the plugin marker to work too:
https://github.com/opencastsoftware/gradle-build-info/blob/main/build.gradle.kts#L132=

I have no idea how anyone is supposed to figure this out but I found some good info in these threads:
https://discuss.gradle.org/t/adding-custom-artifacts-to-an-existing-publication/18067
https://discuss.gradle.org/t/how-can-i-customize-the-pom-of-the-plugin-marker-artifacts/33053/4

[StefMa]

Happen still with 8.5.
I fixed it by adding displayName and description to the publings.register from the java-gradle-plugin plugin block:

gradlePlugin {
    plugins.register("some.id") {
        id = "plugin.id"
        implementationClass = "impl.Class"
        displayName = "SameAsInPom"
        description = "Some Description"
    }
}

I guess the plugin should instead of relaying on this properties, fallback to the publishing.publications.pom declaration of the maven-publish plugin in case it is available...

Update

This is the code in quesiton:

gradle/platforms/extensibility/plugin-development/src/main/java/org/gradle/plugin/devel/plugins/MavenPluginPublishPlugin.java

Lines 113 to 114 in 34efeac

	publication.getPom().getName().set(declaration.getDisplayName());
	publication.getPom().getDescription().set(declaration.getDescription());

it overrides the pom.name and pom.description with the one of the plugin-declaration.
If its not set, there will be nothing in the POM.

I guess a simple check like if !getDisplayName().isEmptyOrNull { setIt() } should fix it.