README.md

Eclipse Dash License Tool

The Eclipse Dash License Tool identifies the licenses of content. It is intended primarily for use by Eclipse committers to vet third party content used by their Eclipse open source project.

The Eclipse Dash License Tool is intended to assist with the process of determining the licenses of third party content and help committers identify intellectual property that require further scrutiny. The tool, like any tool, is only as good as the input provided. This documentation provides examples of how input into the tool can be tuned; these examples should be regarded as such: examples. Ultimately, is the responsibility of committers to understand the nature of their project and the third party content it requires.

Each individual bit of content is identified by its ClearlyDefined id. This id uniquely defines, for example, a particular version of a JAR file, or a particular version of an NPM module. This tool knows how to read and convert Maven coordinates and NPM ids into ClearlyDefined ids.

The Eclipse Dash License Tool does not identify dependencies (at least not in general). Rather, the value it provides starts after the list of dependencies are identified by build tools. That is, the tool works on the list of dependencies with which is it provided (the Maven plugin is an exception to this; it does discover dependencies). Ultimately, the tool is only as good as the input with which it is provided and it is up to the committer to ensure that the input provided is correct (that is, dependencies that are not automatically discovered by build tools must also be vetted per the Eclipse IP Policy).

The CLI accepts a flat file with each line containing a content identifier (ClearlyDefined id, Maven coordinates, or NPM identifier); it also supports a small number of file formats including package-lock.json or yarn.lock files. A Maven plugin that is capable of processing a dependency list extracted from a pom.xml file is also provided.

Use the -summary <file> option to generate a file that contains CSV content with one line for each line of input, mapping a package to a license along with whether that content is approved for use by an Eclipse project or restricted, meaning that the Eclipse IP Team needs to have a look at the Eclipse project's use of that content. This file is suitable for augmenting the IP Log of an Eclipse open source project.

The current implementation uses two sources for license information. The first source is an Eclipse Foundation service that leverages data that the Eclipse Foundation's IP Team has collected over the years (and continues to collect). When that source does not have information for a piece of content, ClearlyDefined's service is used.

The idea was to have some code that can be used to check the licenses of content, but write it in a manner that would make it easy to generate, for example, a Maven plug-in. The main focus, however, has been making this work as a CLI so that it can be used to sort out licenses for Maven, package-lock.json, yarn.lock, etc.

More information about the Eclipse Dash License Tool:

• Eclipse Dash License Tool Maven Plugin
• Eclipse Dash License Tool and The Maven Reactor
• Eclipse Dash License Tool and Package Lock Files

Get it

Dash License Tool executable jar is published to Eclipse's Maven repo and available at https://repo.eclipse.org/content/repositories/dash-licenses/org/eclipse/dash/org.eclipse.dash.licenses/ . Latest version can be directly downloaded from https://repo.eclipse.org/service/local/artifact/maven/redirect?r=dash-licenses&g=org.eclipse.dash&a=org.eclipse.dash.licenses&v=LATEST

It's also available as a Maven plugin.

Alternatively, you can get the source code and build it yourself. See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Build It

The Eclipse Dash License Tool has a Maven-based build.

Requirements:

• Java™ Development Kit (JDK) version 11 (or later); and
• Maven version 3.6.3 (or later).

Any compatible JDK will do, but consider using an 100% open source distribution such as Eclipse Temurin.

Steps:

• Clone this repository;
• cd into the root; and
• Execute mvn clean verify.

If you're going to use the Dash License Tool's Maven plugin locally, then you'll need to install it into the local repo:

• Execute mvn clean install

Usage

The project uses Java 11 language features. Java 11 or greater is required.

The Dash License Tool can read a flat file, a package-lock.json file, or a yarn.lock file. A Maven plugin that works directly from the Maven Reactor is also provided.

In a flat file, dependencies can be expressed one-on-a-line using ClearlyDefined ids (e.g., maven/mavencentral/org.apache.commons/commons-csv/1.8, Maven GAVs (e.g., org.apache.commons:commons-csv:1.8, or and NPM Id (e.g., npm/npmjs/-/babel-polyfill/6.26.0).

Basic invocation takes the following form:

$ java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar <dependency-list>

For example, to read a package-lock.json:

$ java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar package-lock.json

In lieu of an actual file, generated content can be piped to the Dash License Tool via stdin (use a dash to indicate stdin as the source). For example:

$ echo "maven/mavencentral/org.apache.commons/commons-csv/1.8" | java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

The output is either a statement that the licenses for all of the content have been identified and verified, or a list of those dependencies that require further scrutiny.

Automatic IP Team Review Requests

When the tool identifies a library that requires further review, the obvious question is: now what?

The tool incorporates a feature that can create an issue against the IPLab repository on the Eclipse Foundation's GitLab infrastructure.

To use this feature, you must have committer status on at least one Eclipse project.

• Get an authentication token (scope: api) from gitlab.eclipse.org;
• Include the -review option;
• Pass the token via the -token option;
• Pass the Eclipse project's repository URL (e.g., https://github.com/eclipse-dash/dash-licenses) via the -repo option; and
• Pass the Eclipse open source project id (e.g., technology.dash) via the -project option.

Note that the options are slightly different for the Maven plugin.

Do not share your access token.

Example:

$ java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar yarn.lock -review -token <token> -project ecd.theia
License information could not be automatically verified for the following content:

npm/npmjs/-/babel-polyfill/6.26.0
npm/npmjs/-/binaryextensions/2.3.0
npm/npmjs/-/concurrently/3.6.1
npm/npmjs/-/cssmin/0.3.2
npm/npmjs/-/date-fns/1.30.1
...

This content is either not correctly mapped by the system, or requires review.

Setting up a review for npm/npmjs/-/uglify-js/1.3.5.
 - Created: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/iplab/iplab/-/issues/90
Setting up a review for npm/npmjs/-/parse5/4.0.0.
 - Created: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/iplab/iplab/-/issues/91
Setting up a review for npm/npmjs/-/sanitize-html/1.27.5.
 - Created: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/iplab/iplab/-/issues/92
Setting up a review for npm/npmjs/-/jsdom/11.12.0.
 - Created: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/iplab/iplab/-/issues/93
Setting up a review for npm/npmjs/-/detect-node/2.0.4.
 - Created: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/iplab/iplab/-/issues/94

Do not share your access token.

Example: Single Library

The Dash License Tool CLI processes the information that you provide to it either as a file, or via stdin. It doesn't have any interest in where the data comes from (all of the examples that generate a dependency list from build scripts generates the dependency list and then feeds it to the tool). You can use command-line tools to generate input and pipe it into the tool.

To determine whether or an individual library needs further investigation, feed it directly to the tool:

$ echo "tech.units:indriya:1.3" | java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -
License information could not be automatically verified for the following content:

maven/mavencentral/tech.units/indriya/1.3

This content is either not correctly mapped by the system, or requires review.
$ _

To test multiple libraries simultaneously, you can separate them with a newline (note that you need to include the -e option to make echo understand the newline:

$ echo -e "tech.units:indriya:1.3\norg.glassfish:jakarta.json:2.0.0" | java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -
...
$ _

You can use the IP Team Review request feature to automatically set up a review.

$ echo "tech.units:indriya:1.3" | java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar - -review -project <project> -token <token>
License information could not be automatically verified for the following content:

maven/mavencentral/tech.units/indriya/1.3

This content is either not correctly mapped by the system, or requires review.

Setting up a review for maven/mavencentral/tech.units/indriya/1.3.
 - Created: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/iplab/iplab/-/issues/113

$ _

In the case where the license information for the library is not already known, this will create a review request. Do not share your access token.

Example: Maven Plugin

To call the Dash License Tool plugin via mvn:

$ mvn org.eclipse.dash:license-tool-plugin:license-check -Ddash.summary=DEPENDENCIES 
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] 
[INFO] -------------< org.eclipse.dash:org.eclipse.dash.licenses >-------------
[INFO] Building org.eclipse.dash.licenses 1.0.2
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- license-tool-plugin:1.0.2:license-check (default-cli) @ org.eclipse.dash.licenses ---
[INFO] Vetted license information was found for all content. No further investigation is required.
[INFO] Summary file was written to: ./dash-licenses/license-tool-core/DEPENDENCIES
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  3.434 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2020-12-18T11:27:38Z
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ cat DEPENDENCIES 
maven/mavencentral/org.glassfish/jakarta.json/2.0.0, EPL-2.0 OR GPL-2.0 WITH Classpath-exception-2.0, approved, emo_ip_team
maven/mavencentral/org.checkerframework/checker-compat-qual/2.5.3, MIT, approved, clearlydefined
maven/mavencentral/commons-cli/commons-cli/1.4, Apache-2.0, approved, CQ13132
maven/mavencentral/org.apache.commons/commons-csv/1.8, Apache-2.0, approved, clearlydefined
maven/mavencentral/com.google.flogger/flogger/0.5.1, Apache-2.0, approved, clearlydefined

Note that the plugin automatically generates a summary file in the target directory; use the -Ddash.summary=<location> switch to override the default location.

Add to your Maven Build

Configure the license check plugin to be auto executed (e.g. in the verify phase):

<build>
	<plugins>
		<plugin>
			<groupId>org.eclipse.dash</groupId>
			<artifactId>license-tool-plugin</artifactId>
			<version>1.0.2</version>
			<executions>
				<execution>
					<id>license-check</id>
					<goals>
						<goal>license-check</goal>
					</goals>
				</execution>
			</executions>
		</plugin>
		...
	</plugins>
	...
</build>

Add the repo.eclipse.org plugin repository so that the license check plugin is discoverable (it's not available in Maven Central):

<pluginRepositories>
	<pluginRepository>
		<id>dash-licenses-snapshots</id>
		<url>https://repo.eclipse.org/content/repositories/dash-licenses-snapshots/</url>
		<snapshots>
			<enabled>true</enabled>
		</snapshots>
	</pluginRepository>
	...
</pluginRepositories>

Maven Plugin Options

The Maven Plugin has the following properties that can passed either via the command-line or as configuration parameters in your pom.xml file:

• dash.skip - Skip executing the plugin. Default: false;
• dash.fail - Force the build to fail when license issues are found. Default: false;
• dash.iplab.token - The access token for automatically creating IP Team review requests Do not share your access token.;
• dash.projectId - The Eclipse open source project id (e.g. technology.dash);
• dash.repo - Specify the Eclipse Project repository that is the source of the request (e.g., https://github.com/eclipse-dash/dash-licenses);
• dash.summary - The location (where) to generate the summary file; and
• dash.review.summary - The location (where) to generate the review-summary file.

All properties are optional.

Note that the Maven plugin always generates the summary file. The default location is ${project.build.directory}/dash/summary.

To generate a summary of dependencies named DEPENDENCIES in the working directory:

$ mvn org.eclipse.dash:license-tool-plugin:license-check -Ddash.summary=DEPENDENCIES

To automatically create IP Team review requests for identified content:

$ mvn org.eclipse.dash:license-tool-plugin:license-check -Ddash.iplab.token=<token> -Ddash.projectId=<projectId>

Do not share your access token. Provide the Eclipse open source project id (e.g., technology.dash) in place of the <projectId> placeholder.

Maven Plugin Inclusions and Exclusions

You can filter which dependencies are included and excluded from consideration by the Eclipse Dash License Tool. Inclusions override exclusions.

Use includeScope and excludeScope to specify the scope of dependencies to include or exclude:

• runtime means runtime and compile dependencies only;
• compile (default for includeScope) means compile, provided, and system dependencies only;
• test means all dependencies;
• provided means provided dependencies only; and
• system means system dependencies only.

Use includeTypes and excludeTypes to specify, by comma-separated list, the types to include or exclude.

Use includeClassifiers and excludeClassifiers to specify, by comma-separated list, the classifiers to include or exclude.

Use includeGroupIds and excludeGroupIds to specify, by comma-separated list, the group ids to include or exclude. Partial matches are supported (e.g., specifying org.eclipse as an exclusion will exclude org.eclipse.jdt).

Use includeArtifactIds and excludeArtifactIds to specify, by comma-separate list, the artifact ids to include or exclude.

Note that partial matches are only supported for group ids. All other filters work by exact match.

To exclude all Eclipse project content in an org.eclipse.* namespace:

$ mvn org.eclipse.dash:license-tool-plugin:license-check -DexcludeGroupIds=org.eclipse

Eclipse Tycho

The Eclipse Dash License Tool's Maven plugin uses the standard Maven Reactor to determine the list of dependencies that it needs to check.

Eclipse Tycho uses a different mechanism to resolve dependencies that is not always invoked.

Add -Dtycho.target.eager=true to turn on the requireEagerResolve option to force Tycho to resolve all dependencies.

Troubleshooting Maven Dependencies

There are cases where some transitive dependency with problematic licensing that is neither directly nor indirectly required by your content is dragged in by some other transitive dependency.

The Dash License Tool really doesn't know anything about dependencies. It has no means of making any assessment of whether or not certain content actually winds up in the products that your producing. It only knows about the information that it is fed either directly by you or by the underlying dependency resolution system.

In this case, you can provide Maven with a list of exclusions.

<project>
	...
	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.linkedin</groupId>
			<artifactId>org.linkedin.zookeeper-impl</artifactId>
			<version>${linkedin-zookeeper-version}</version>
			<exclusions>
				<exclusion>
					<groupId>org.json</groupId>
					<artifactId>json</artifactId>
				</exclusion>
			</exclusions>
		</dependency>
		...
	</dependencies>
	...
</project>

Maven will skip matching content when it resolves dependencies.

Note that this "problem" is not a Dash License Tool problem, but rather is a dependency management problem. Try not to think in terms of making changes to satisfy quirks of this particular tool, but rather of making your project's dependency list as accurate as possible. Other tools, like the GitHub Dependabot and the OSS Review Toolkit, use this information as well.

Maven Scope

You may get different results using the Maven plugin vs. the CLI.

The Maven plugin only includes dependencies that are in the compile scope.

In contrast, if you use Maven's dependency plugin to generate a dependency list that you then feed to the CLI, you'll get a list that includes all dependencies in all scopes (e.g., it will include content in the test scope).

Example: Maven

Consider using the Maven plugin instead.

You can use the Maven dependency plugin to generate a list of dependencies and then feed that list into the tool.

$ mvn verify dependency:list -DskipTests -Dmaven.javadoc.skip=true -DappendOutput=true -DoutputFile=maven.deps
$ java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar maven.deps
...
$ _

⚠️ If your project is a multi-module Maven project, you should provide an absolute path to -DoutputFile to append all dependencies in the same file (see MDEP-542).

You can use the IP Team Review request feature to automatically set up a review.

$ mvn verify dependency:list -DskipTests -Dmaven.javadoc.skip=true -DappendOutput=true -DoutputFile=maven.deps
$ java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar maven.deps -review -project <project> -token <token>
...
$ _

In the case where the license information for content is not already known, this will create review requests (the current implementation will make five requests maximum). Do not share your access token.

Example: Gradle

Find all of the potentially problematic third party libraries from a Gradle build.

Note that we have mixed success with this use of Gradle as it is very dependent on the specific nature of the build. Please verify that Gradle is correctly identifying your dependencies by invoking ./gradlew dependencies before trying this.

$ ./gradlew dependencies \
| grep -Poh "(?<=\-\-\- ).*" \
| grep -Pv "\([c\*]\)" \
| perl -pe 's/([\w\.\-]+):([\w\.\-]+):(?:[\w\.\-]+ -> )?([\w\.\-]+).*$/$1:$2:$3/gmi;t' \
| sort -u \
| java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Steps:

1. Use the Gradle dependencies command to generate a dependency list;
2. Extract the lines that contain references to content;
3. Remove the lines that are dependency constraints (c) or are duplicates (*);
4. Normalise the GAV to the groupid, artifactid and resolved version (e.g., when the version is "1.8.20 -> 1.9.0", map that to "1.9.0");
5. Sort and remove duplicates; and
6. Invoke the tool.

Example: Package Lock

The Eclipse Dash License Tool can parse a package-lock.json file.

$ java -jar /dash-licenses/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar package-lock.json

Example: Yarn

If you've generated a yarn.lock file, you can feed it directly to the license tool.

$ java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar yarn.lock
License information could not be automatically verified for the following content:

npm/npmjs/-/babel-polyfill/6.26.0
npm/npmjs/-/binaryextensions/2.3.0
npm/npmjs/-/concurrently/3.6.1

This content is either not correctly mapped by the system, or requires review.

Example .NET

Use the dotnet command to get the list of transitive dependencies, filter out all but the actual dependency references, strip out the "system" components, convert the remaining entries into ClearlyDefined format, and then feed the results to the Eclipse Dash License Tool.

NOTE the example below is a guess at something that we believe should work in PowerShell. It's based on an example of the output provided to us that was generated by executing dotnet list package --include-transitive on what we believe is a Windows host system, but the post processing was all done in Linux. Again, we believe that this should work in PowerShell, but have not tested it there. Your feedback and pull requests are welcome.

$ dotnet list package --include-transitive \
| grep ">" \
| grep -Pv "\s(Microsoft|NETStandard|NuGet|System|runtime)" \
| sed -E -e "s/\s+> ([a-zA-Z\.\-]+).+\s([0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+)\s+/nuget\/nuget\/\-\/\1\/\2/g" 
| java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Steps:

1. Use dotnet list package to generate a dependency list;
2. Pull out the entries that represent dependencies (lines start with >);
3. Skip lines containing "system" content;
4. Convert each line into a ClearlyDefined ID;
5. Invoke the tool.

It may make sense to tune the expression to, for example, also skip your project content.

Example: Rust/Cargo

The cargo tree -e normal --prefix none --no-dedupe command can give us a list of dependencies. If we reformat those dependencies as ClearlyDefined IDs, they can be piped directly into the Dash License Tool.

For this, we can use sed:

$ cargo tree -e normal --prefix none --no-dedupe \
| sort -u \
| grep -v '^[[:space:]]*$' \
| grep -v zenoh \
| sed -E 's|([^ ]+) v([^ ]+).*|crate/cratesio/-/\1/\2|' \
| java -jar org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Steps:

1. Use cargo to generate a dependency list;
2. Sort the results and remove duplicates;
3. Remove empty lines;
4. Remove references to project code;
5. Map each line to a ClearlyDefined ID; and
6. Invoke the tool.

The above example skips code from the Eclipse Zenoh project. Anything that is not third-party content can be removed in a similar manner.

Note that, in order to better leverage ClearlyDefined data, the "v" should not be included in the version number. For example, serde_json v1.0.85 becomes crate/cratesio/-/serde_json/1.0.85.

Example Python

You can use pip and a requirements.txt (or similar) file to check Python dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt --dry-run \
| grep -Poh "(?<=^Would install ).*$" | grep -oP '[^\s]+' \
| sed -E -e 's|(.+)\-([a-zA-Z0-9\.]+)|pypi/pypi/-/\1/\2|' \
| java -jar/dash-licenses/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Steps:

1. Do a dry-run install with pip feeding it with your requirements file;
2. Extract the "Would install" line from the results and dump the libraries on separate lines;
3. Map each line to a ClearlyDefined ID; and
4. Invoke the tool.

Very often, you can get away with greping the requirements.txt file check dependencies (if there's some reason why you can't use pip):

cat requirements.txt | grep -v \# \
| sed -E -e 's|([^= ]+)==([^= ]+)|pypi/pypi/-/\1/\2|' -e 's| ||g' -e 's|\[.*\]||g' \
| sort | uniq \
| java -jar /dash-licenses/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Steps:

1. Prune out the comment lines;
2. Map each line to a ClearlyDefined ID;
3. Sort the results and remove duplicates; and
4. Invoke the tool.

Note: This is a quick workaround and not intended to be a robust or reliable solution.

Alternatively, use pipdeptree to find all of the dependencies in your virtual environment, convert them into ClearlyDefined IDs, and pipe the results to the Eclipse Dash License Tool:

$ pipdeptree -a -f \
| sed -E -e 's|([^= ]+)==([^= ]+)|pypi/pypi/-/\1/\2|' -e 's| ||g' \
| sort | uniq \
| java -jar /dash-licenses/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Example: Go

The Eclipse Dash License Tool can parse a go.sum file.

$ java -jar /dash-licenses/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar go.sum

Example: SBT

Find all of the potentially problematic third party libraries from an SBT build.

$ ./sbt dependencyTree \
| grep -Poh "(?<=\+\-)[^:]+:[^:]+:[^:\s]+" | sort | uniq \
| java -jar /dash-licenses/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -

Example: Help

The CLI tool does provide help.

$ java -jar target/org.eclipse.dash.licenses-<version>.jar -help
usage: org.eclipse.dash.licenses.cli.Main [options] <file> ...
Sort out the licenses and approval of dependencies.
 -batch <int>                Batch size (number of entries sent per API
                             call)
 -confidence <int>           Confidence threshold expressed as integer
                             percent (0-100)
 -excludeSources <sources>   Exclude values from specific sources
 -help,--help                Display help
 -project <shortname>        Process the request in the context of an
                             Eclipse project (e.g., technology.dash)
 -repo <url>                 The Eclipse Project repository that is the
                             source of the request
 -review                     Must also specify the project and token
 -summary <file>             Output a summary to a file
 -timeout <seconds>          Timeout for HTTP calls (in seconds)
 -token <token>              The GitLab authentication token

<file> is the path to a file, or "-" to indicate stdin.
For more help and examples, see
https://github.com/eclipse-dash/dash-licenses

Errors

The Eclipse Dash License Tool throws and exception and fails when it encounters an error condition. This is intentional: the tools fails fast and leaves it up to the caller to decide what to do next (e.g., try again). We decided that this was especially important for when the tool is integrated into builds, for which timely execution is important. We may consider making this configurable (open an issue if this is something that you care about).

The most common errors are connection errors while attempting to connect to services like ClearlyDefined or IPLab.

e.g.,

[main] INFO Querying ClearlyDefined for license data for 15 items.
[main] ERROR Error response from ClearlyDefined HTTP 524

In the above example, the tool encountered an HTTP 524 (time out) error while attempting to communicate with the ClearlyDefined server.

The tool does try to batch requests to the IP data services to reduce the probability of hitting API limits resulting in an HTTP 429 (too many requests) error; but these may happen too.

The one exception to the fail fast rule is HTTP 502 (bad gateway) errors. For reasons that we have not investigated fully, we encounter this error relatively frequently when calling the ClearlyDefined API; but the error is transient and retrying is usually immediately successful.

If you're having trouble, try adding -Dorg.slf4j.simpleLogger.defaultLogLevel=debug to your invocation of the tool (Maven or CLI) and open an issue. It's difficult for us to diagnose network errors, but we'll help as best we can.

Reusable Github workflow for automatic license check and IP Team Review Requests

EXPERIMENTAL

Eclipse projects that use Maven for building can use the following workflow to set up an automatic license vetting check for their project, that also allows committer to request automatic IP reviews via comments:

# This workflow will check for Maven projects if the licenses of all (transitive) dependencies are vetted.
name: License vetting status check
on:
  push:
    branches: 
      - 'master'
  pull_request:
    branches: 
     - 'master'
  issue_comment:
    types: [created]
jobs:
  call-license-check:
    uses: eclipse-dash/dash-licenses/.github/workflows/mavenLicenseCheck.yml@master
    with:
      projectId: <PROJECT-ID>
    secrets:
      gitlabAPIToken: ${{ secrets.<PROJECT-NAME>_GITLAB_API_TOKEN }}

Projects that have to be set up in advance can use the setupScript parameter to pass a script that is executed before the license-check build is started. Projects that want their git submodules to be checked out and processed can use the 'submodule' parameter.

On each pull-reqest event (i.e. a new PR is created or a new commit for it is pushed) the license-status of all project dependencies is checked automatically and in case unvetted licenses are found the check fails. Committers of that project can request a review from the IP team, by simply adding a comment with body /request-license-review. The github-actions bot reacts with a 'rocket' to indicate the request was understood and is processed. Attempts to request license review by non-committers are rejected with a thumps-down reaction. After the license-review build has terminated the github-action bot will reply with a comment to show the result of the license review request. Committers can later re-run this license-check workflow from the Github actions web-interface to check for license-status changes.

Requirements

• Maven based build
• Root pom.xml must reside in the repository root
• An authentication token (scope: api) from gitlab.eclipse.org has to be stored in the repositories secret store(Settings -> Scrects -> Actions) with name M2E_GITLAB_API_TOKEN.

Advanced Scenarios

Support for some advanced usage may vary between Maven and stand-alone execution.

Authenticated Proxies

For Maven builds that need to access web resources through a proxy server, the Maven settings file ($M2_HOME/settings.xml) provides for configuration of the host, port, and authorization credentials of one or more proxy servers. The Dash License plug-in also can use these proxy settings to route its requests for web resources through the proxy.

By default, the first active proxy in the settings is used by Maven plug-ins, including the Dash License plug-in. To select a different active proxy configuration, simply configure its ID in your project:

<build>
	<plugins>
		<plugin>
			<groupId>org.eclipse.dash</groupId>
			<artifactId>license-tool-plugin</artifactId>
			<version>1.0.2</version>
			<configuration>
				<proxy>my-proxy</proxy>
			</configuration>
			<executions>
				<execution>
					<id>license-check</id>
					<goals>
						<goal>license-check</goal>
					</goals>
				</execution>
			</executions>
		</plugin>
	</plugins>
</build>

This may also be overridden on the command-line if necessary:

$ mvn -Ddash.proxy=my-proxy clean verify

A best practice for storage of the proxy user's password in the $M2_HOME/settings.xml file is to encrypt it using the master password stored in the $HOME/.settings-security.xml file:

<proxies>
	<proxy>
		<id>my-proxy</id>
		<active>true</active>
		<protocol>http</protocol>
		<host>localhost</host>
		<port>3128</port>
		<username>johndoe</username>
		<password>{GgKsMHh3F80Hr8=}</password>
	</proxy>
</proxies>

See the Maven Encryption Guide for details of configuring servers such as proxies with encrypted credentials.