Fails to detect python wheel license (MIT) about syft

[wagoodman]

There's also Classifier: License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License in the metadata.

I like that thought -- looks like there are two paths forward, where the canonical truth is the license file itself but we can also use the metadata as a shortcut (if it exists) when there is no license present.

[tgerla]

Hi @black-snow, thanks for your report. I've reproduced this issue and we'll do some more investigation and hopefully have an answer for you soon. Stay tuned!

[wagoodman]

This looks to be an enhancement request based off of what I'm seeing:

❯ docker run --rm -it python:3.10-slim-bookworm  bash
root@bf7baffe51ed:/# find . | grep wheel | grep LICENSE
./usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/LICENSE.txt
root@bf7baffe51ed:/# cat ./usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/
INSTALLER         LICENSE.txt       METADATA          RECORD            REQUESTED         WHEEL             entry_points.txt
root@bf7baffe51ed:/# cat ./usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/METADATA
Metadata-Version: 2.1
Name: wheel
Version: 0.42.0
Summary: A built-package format for Python
Keywords: wheel,packaging
Author-email: Daniel Holth <[email protected]>
Maintainer-email: Alex Grönholm <[email protected]>
Requires-Python: >=3.7
Description-Content-Type: text/x-rst
Classifier: Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable
Classifier: Intended Audience :: Developers
Classifier: Topic :: System :: Archiving :: Packaging
Classifier: License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3 :: Only
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12
Requires-Dist: pytest >= 6.0.0 ; extra == "test"
Requires-Dist: setuptools >= 65 ; extra == "test"
Project-URL: Changelog, https://wheel.readthedocs.io/en/stable/news.html
Project-URL: Documentation, https://wheel.readthedocs.io/
Project-URL: Issue Tracker, https://github.com/pypa/wheel/issues
Project-URL: Source, https://github.com/pypa/wheel
Provides-Extra: test

wheel
=====

This library is the reference implementation of the Python wheel packaging
standard, as defined in `PEP 427`_.

It has two different roles:

#. A setuptools_ extension for building wheels that provides the
   ``bdist_wheel`` setuptools command
#. A command line tool for working with wheel files

It should be noted that wheel is **not** intended to be used as a library, and
as such there is no stable, public API.

.. _PEP 427: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0427/
.. _setuptools: https://pypi.org/project/setuptools/

Documentation
-------------

The documentation_ can be found on Read The Docs.

.. _documentation: https://wheel.readthedocs.io/

Code of Conduct
---------------

Everyone interacting in the wheel project's codebases, issue trackers, chat
rooms, and mailing lists is expected to follow the `PSF Code of Conduct`_.

.. _PSF Code of Conduct: https://github.com/pypa/.github/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

root@bf7baffe51ed:/# cat ./usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/RECORD
../../../bin/wheel,sha256=hwKLi6v0PxFQWIn45e52s2IxgDsqNe19uE49Oi6uF-8,213
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/INSTALLER,sha256=zuuue4knoyJ-UwPPXg8fezS7VCrXJQrAP7zeNuwvFQg,4
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/LICENSE.txt,sha256=MMI2GGeRCPPo6h0qZYx8pBe9_IkcmO8aifpP8MmChlQ,1107
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/METADATA,sha256=QMZYvPF88F2lBnZ9cf7-ugqmkGDUN8j3FUvNHikLhck,2203
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/RECORD,,
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/REQUESTED,sha256=47DEQpj8HBSa-_TImW-5JCeuQeRkm5NMpJWZG3hSuFU,0
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/WHEEL,sha256=EZbGkh7Ie4PoZfRQ8I0ZuP9VklN_TvcZ6DSE5Uar4z4,81
wheel-0.42.0.dist-info/entry_points.txt,sha256=rTY1BbkPHhkGMm4Q3F0pIzJBzW2kMxoG1oriffvGdA0,104
wheel/__init__.py,sha256=c5n4mea4NyUhMCk8GWbX4_O739E5ATPX23lTJRXf9ZI,59
wheel/__main__.py,sha256=NkMUnuTCGcOkgY0IBLgBCVC_BGGcWORx2K8jYGS12UE,455
wheel/_setuptools_logging.py,sha256=NoCnjJ4DFEZ45Eo-2BdXLsWJCwGkait1tp_17paleVw,746
wheel/bdist_wheel.py,sha256=Hrol9LUphvfapYo6Ro4RHhypq8iLew6jpp8NXd_CFw4,20943
wheel/cli/__init__.py,sha256=eBNhnPwWTtdKAJHy77lvz7gOQ5Eu3GavGugXxhSsn-U,4264
wheel/cli/convert.py,sha256=qJcpYGKqdfw1P6BelgN1Hn_suNgM6bvyEWFlZeuSWx0,9439
wheel/cli/pack.py,sha256=H6BZ8HyIYqP_2quRiczjHN08dykmdWTSLN0VMTYkzh8,3110
wheel/cli/tags.py,sha256=lHw-LaWrkS5Jy_qWcw-6pSjeNM6yAjDnqKI3E5JTTCU,4760
wheel/cli/unpack.py,sha256=Y_J7ynxPSoFFTT7H0fMgbBlVErwyDGcObgme5MBuz58,1021
wheel/macosx_libfile.py,sha256=mKH4GW3FILt0jLgm5LPgj7D5XyEvBU2Fgc-jCxMfSng,16143
wheel/metadata.py,sha256=jGDlp6IMblnujK4u1eni8VAdn2WYycSdQ-P6jaGBUMw,5882
wheel/util.py,sha256=e0jpnsbbM9QhaaMSyap-_ZgUxcxwpyLDk6RHcrduPLg,621
wheel/vendored/__init__.py,sha256=47DEQpj8HBSa-_TImW-5JCeuQeRkm5NMpJWZG3hSuFU,0
wheel/vendored/packaging/__init__.py,sha256=47DEQpj8HBSa-_TImW-5JCeuQeRkm5NMpJWZG3hSuFU,0
wheel/vendored/packaging/_elffile.py,sha256=hbmK8OD6Z7fY6hwinHEUcD1by7czkGiNYu7ShnFEk2k,3266
wheel/vendored/packaging/_manylinux.py,sha256=Rq6ppXAxH8XFtNf6tC-B-1SKuvCODPBvcCoSulMtbtk,9526
wheel/vendored/packaging/_musllinux.py,sha256=kgmBGLFybpy8609-KTvzmt2zChCPWYvhp5BWP4JX7dE,2676
wheel/vendored/packaging/_parser.py,sha256=5DhK_zYJE4U4yzSkgEBT4F7tT2xZ6Pkx4gSRKyvXneQ,10382
wheel/vendored/packaging/_structures.py,sha256=q3eVNmbWJGG_S0Dit_S3Ao8qQqz_5PYTXFAKBZe5yr4,1431
wheel/vendored/packaging/_tokenizer.py,sha256=alCtbwXhOFAmFGZ6BQ-wCTSFoRAJ2z-ysIf7__MTJ_k,5292
wheel/vendored/packaging/markers.py,sha256=eH-txS2zq1HdNpTd9LcZUcVIwewAiNU0grmq5wjKnOk,8208
wheel/vendored/packaging/requirements.py,sha256=wswG4mXHSgE9w4NjNnlSvgLGo6yYvfHVEFnWhuEmXxg,2952
wheel/vendored/packaging/specifiers.py,sha256=ZOpqL_w_Kj6ZF_OWdliQUzhEyHlDbi6989kr-sF5GHs,39206
wheel/vendored/packaging/tags.py,sha256=pkG6gQ28RlhS09VzymVhVpGrWF5doHXfK1VxG9cdhoY,18355
wheel/vendored/packaging/utils.py,sha256=XgdmP3yx9-wQEFjO7OvMj9RjEf5JlR5HFFR69v7SQ9E,5268
wheel/vendored/packaging/version.py,sha256=XjRBLNK17UMDgLeP8UHnqwiY3TdSi03xFQURtec211A,16236
wheel/vendored/vendor.txt,sha256=nMQ1MrIbjx7YcPQqZbwUPHLy08Q1lMPPL90HWSrazw0,16
wheel/wheelfile.py,sha256=A5QzHd3cpDBqDEr8O6R6jqwLKiqkLlde6VjfgdQXo5Q,7701

Note that though there is a record of LICENSE.txt, but there is not License field in the metadata.

The enhancement here is to be able to look at the owned files for this package (from RECORDS) and look for license like files and classify the contents.

[black-snow]

Might be - I have no idea what syft currently looks at. There's also Classifier: License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License in the metadata.