setuptools doesn't install licenses

Originally reported by: notting (Bitbucket: notting, GitHub: notting)

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1. Most python software is licensed under MIT, BSD, or similar licenses
2. These licenses require shipping a copy of the license with distributions of the software.

Ergo, setuptools should add the LICENSE or COPYING file to the egginfo/distinfo directory by default, so licenses get distributed automatically.

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• Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/issue/357

[jakirkham]

Would it be possible to have a license_file keyword argument for setup? This file (or directory or list if multiple) could then just get copied over.

[agronholm]

The license file already comes included in the sdist (barring any mishaps by the author). As for wheels, you can add license_file = LICENSE option in the [metadata] section in setup.cfg. This feature has not been documented but I will rectify that once I overhaul wheel's documentation.

[anntzer]

It appears that unless the license file is explicitly mentioned in the manifest, it will NOT be included (just tested with setuptools 36.5.0 / distutils from Py 3.6). This is also the behavior documented in https://docs.python.org/3.6/distutils/sourcedist.html#specifying-the-files-to-distribute.

But as you point out yourself, it is easy enough for setuptools to find that information: it should read it from setup.cfg's metadata.license_file, to avoid having to duplicate it.

[pganssle]

I think this is a reasonable enhancement. The new behavior should be that python setup.py sdist should include the license file if license_file is included in setup.cfg unless it is explicitly excluded in MANIFEST.in.

There's a case to be made for including anything called LICENSE or LICENSE.txt or LICENSE.md by default, as well, but I think that needs further discussion.

[dtaneli]

Working on this as part of PyPA Sprint Weekend at Bloomberg (2018)