raimon49/pip-licenses
example cannot simply be version bumped - but uses historical & incompatible version
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#327 opened on Apr 22, 2026
help wantedquestion
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Description
The Problem & Scope
In the README.md (circa v5.5.5):
The version 38.5.0 of setuptools is significantly out-of-data (and incompatible/deprecated, as pip-licenses v5.5.5 requires setuptools>=82.0.0), and the contemporary versions of setuptools no-longer yield License: UNKNOWN so this example in the documentation cannot be simply version bumped.
The Constraints
- Documentation should be more-or-less contemporary in-order to be useful to users.
- This does not mean we must keep the bad example(s).
- This does not mean we just drop the bad example(s).
- This does mean we can't just leave the paradoxical example as
pip show setuptools(see above problem)
- For any replacement example(s) would at-least include the additional constraints:
- Documentation should use examples demonstratively (e.g., should be reproducible by users)
- The example in this case is about when a particular package does not declare a clear license in its METADATA file, then
pip show <some-package>should also show 'License: UNKNOWN' - Known vulnerable packages should never be encouraged (albeit not out-right prohibited)
- This is not an exhaustive list of constraints.
RFC: Further design discussion needed for clear path forward. Namely:
- Is there a known package that would make a good replacement example?
- has this become a rare edge-case for version
pip-licensesv5.5.5+ ?