Apache Rat is a release audit tool. Use Rat to improve accuracy and efficiency when checking releases. It is heuristic in nature: making guesses about possible problems. It will produce false positives and cannot find every possible issue with a release. It's reports require interpretation.
Rat was developed in response to a need felt in the Apache Incubator to be able to review releases for the most common faults less labour intensively. It is therefore highly tuned to the Apache style of releases.
Rat is intended to be self documenting: reports should include introductory material describing their function. Building Rat describes how to run Rat. Running Rat describes the options available. The release notes describe the current state of Rat.
Apache Rat is part of the Apache Creadur language- and build-agnostic suite of tools for auditing and comprehending software distributions. Our community develops open source software the Apache way.