Content area

Abstract

The proliferation of open source software (OSS) and different types of reuse has made it incredibly difficult to perform an essential legal and compliance task of accurate license identification within the software supply chain. This study presents a reusable and comprehensive dataset of OSS licenses, created using the World of Code (WoC) infrastructure. By scanning all files containing "license" in their file paths, and applying the approximate matching via winnowing algorithm to identify the most similar license from the SPDX list, we found and identified 5.5 million distinct license blobs in OSS projects. The dataset includes a detailed project-to-license (P2L) map with commit timestamps, enabling dynamic analysis of license adoption and changes over time. To verify the accuracy of the dataset we use stratified sampling and manual review, achieving a final accuracy of 92.08%, with precision of 87.14%, recall of 95.45%, and an F1 score of 91.11%. This dataset is intended to support a range of research and practical tasks, including the detection of license noncompliance, the investigations of license changes, study of licensing trends, and the development of compliance tools. The dataset is open, providing a valuable resource for developers, researchers, and legal professionals in the OSS community.

Details

1009240
Business indexing term
Identifier / keyword
Title
OSS License Identification at Scale: A Comprehensive Dataset Using World of Code
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Dec 6, 2024
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2024-12-09
Milestone dates
2024-09-07 (Submission v1); 2024-12-06 (Submission v2)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
09 Dec 2024
ProQuest document ID
3102578362
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/oss-license-identification-at-scale-comprehensive/docview/3102578362/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2024. This work is published under http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2024-12-10
Database
2 databases
  • ProQuest One Academic
  • ProQuest One Academic