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[license] Add license scanning of third_party dependencies#187

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rtorok-zr wants to merge 3 commits intomasterfrom
scancode-third-party
Open

[license] Add license scanning of third_party dependencies#187
rtorok-zr wants to merge 3 commits intomasterfrom
scancode-third-party

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@rtorok-zr rtorok-zr commented Jan 22, 2026

This PR introduces scanning for incompatible FOSS licenses (e.g. GNU GPL) on the http_archive dependencies in third_party/, using scancode-toolkit.

The scancode_test macro introduced in this PR allows ignoring some files if necessary. Many are benign for reasons such as:

  1. The scanner detected license text in a file that is not actually licensed as such. Most of these either reference an unused transitive dependency using a different license, or mention that an older version of the software used a different license.
  2. ScanCode fails to parse some types of files, most notably PDFs.

Further, some tools with share-alike licenses are only used at build-time and never linked directly into a deliverable. GPL-licensed dev-only tools use a different policy file that permits these licenses (dev_policy.yaml). Tools affected by this include:
- openocd, an embedded debugging tool.
- doxygen a tool used alongside mdbook to build the documentation.
- shellcheck, a linter for shell scripts.

@rtorok-zr rtorok-zr requested review from fragglet and qmn January 22, 2026 02:23
@rtorok-zr rtorok-zr force-pushed the scancode-third-party branch 5 times, most recently from 9a1b277 to 4ead3ba Compare January 22, 2026 17:19
Signed-off-by: Ryan Torok <rtorok@zerorisc.com>
Signed-off-by: Ryan Torok <rtorok@zerorisc.com>
@rtorok-zr rtorok-zr force-pushed the scancode-third-party branch from 4ead3ba to 74d0c30 Compare January 23, 2026 19:11
Signed-off-by: Ryan Torok <rtorok@zerorisc.com>
@rtorok-zr rtorok-zr force-pushed the scancode-third-party branch from 74d0c30 to 69138c7 Compare January 23, 2026 20:04
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