RAT checks for licenses are failing

[elharo]

Affected version

HEAD

Bug description

Looks like it's checking files it shouldn't, possibly gitignored files

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Reactor Summary for Apache Maven 4.1.0-SNAPSHOT:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Apache Maven ....................................... SUCCESS [  4.670 s]
[INFO] Maven 4 API ........................................ FAILURE [  0.196 s]
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Meta annotations .................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Dependency Injection ................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: XML ................................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Model ............................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Plugin .............................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Settings ............................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Toolchain ........................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Repository Metadata ................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: Core ................................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: SPI ................................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API :: CLI ................................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 Implementation Modules ..................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 XML Implementation ......................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 Model Support .............................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 Dependency Injection ....................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 JLine integration .......................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 Logging .................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 API Implementation ......................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Compatibility Modules ........................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Artifact ..................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Model ........................................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Builder Support (deprecated) ................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Model Builder (deprecated) ................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 3 Plugin API ................................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Repository Metadata Model .................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Settings ..................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Toolchain Model .............................. SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Toolchain Builder (deprecated) ............... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 Core ....................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Settings Builder (deprecated) ................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Artifact Resolver Provider (deprecated) ...... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Compat (deprecated) .......................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 CLI ........................................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Plugin Testing Mechanism ..................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven Embedder (deprecated) ........................ SKIPPED
[INFO] Apache Maven Distribution .......................... SKIPPED
[INFO] Maven 4 Executor ................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  5.006 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2026-03-14T17:52:44-04:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.rat:apache-rat-plugin:0.16.1:check (rat-check) on project maven-api: Too many files with unapproved license: 26 See RAT report in: /Users/elharo/maven/api/target/rat.txt -> [Help 1]
[ERROR] 

[WARNING] Files with unapproved licenses:
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/checkstyle-cachefile
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/checkstyle-result.xml
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/maven-status/maven-compiler-plugin/compile/default-compile/inputFiles.lst
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/maven-status/maven-compiler-plugin/compile/default-compile/createdFiles.lst
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/plugins.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/distribution-management.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/issue-management.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/team.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/index.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/project-info.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/dependency-info.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/css/site.css
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/js/apache-maven-fluido-1.11.2.min.js
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/plugin-management.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/mailing-lists.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/ci-management.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/dependency-convergence.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/scm.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/site/summary.html
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/spotless-index
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/target/.plxarc
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/.classpath
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/.settings/org.eclipse.m2e.core.prefs
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/.settings/org.eclipse.core.resources.prefs
  /Users/elharo/maven/api/maven-api-meta/.project

[elharo]

also possible mvn clean isn't cleaning everything it should

[olamy]

should be closed as not an issue (see comments in #11806)

[elharo]

The open question is where did api/maven-api-meta come from? Is it part of the mdo build? and if so, why doesn't mvn clean get rid of it?

[hboutemy]

you never built a Maven project where a sub-project was dropped?
or in this case a sub-project was added in recent Git history, but then you build an old branch where the sub-project does not exist?

this is the typical symptom: remaining target/ with content, but no pom.xml to clean it, and no way for Maven to know about that structure change

nothing new, no bug, just experience

[elharo]

Was maven-api-meta an old subproject that was dropped? That would explain it. I'll check the history.

However, I do not agree that if so this is not a bug. If this is what happened maven should be able to clean this up with an mvn clean. If it's not doing that, it's a serious failing and possible design flaw in the maven clean plugin. The user should be able to rely on mvn clean removing all build artifacts.

[hboutemy]

If this is what happened maven should be able to clean this up with an mvn clean. If it's not doing that, it's a serious failing and possible design flaw in the maven clean plugin.

look at the design of Maven, pom.xml and plugins, and everything that can happen in a local directory structure with people and tool adding and removing files, and you'll see that this affirmation is just ignoring all the structure of Maven build tool

sometimes, I'm amazed by such reactions from a long standing Maven committer

[elharo]

There's also a likely rat fail here. rat should be ignoring .gitignored files.

[elharo]

Thinking like a longtime committer is exactly the wrong way to understand this. Thinking like a project developer gives far too much weight to the internals of maven. Instead, think like a user. What is the maven clean plugin expected to do? It cleans up build artifacts. That's it. If it's not cleaning up the build artifacts, for whatever reason, then it's not doing what it's supposed to do. And it behooves the maintainers to fix it so that it fulfills its function.

[hboutemy]

if you don't want to understand that Maven works when a pom.xml exists, and when pom.xml disappears, Maven can't do much, that's your choice: good luck
(from a maven-clean-plugin perspective, to be explicit)

[hboutemy]

if you want to improve rat-maven-plugin, don't hesitate to contact rat-maven-plugin: I confirm that it would improve user experience
FYI https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/RAT-476

[gnodet]

Closing — this was not a Maven bug. The RAT check failure was caused by a stale target/ directory from a previously-removed submodule (maven-api-meta) left behind after switching branches. Since the submodule's pom.xml no longer exists, mvn clean has no way to know about it — this is expected Maven behavior.

The RAT plugin side of this (ignoring .gitignored files) is tracked upstream at RAT-476.

Fix: git clean -fdx or manually delete the orphaned target/ directory.