scholarly journals The Computer Program as a Functional Whole

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Maria Keet
Keyword(s):  
Computer Program ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Source File ◽  
And Function

Sharing, downloading, and reusing software is common-place, some of which is carried out legally with open source software. When it is not legal, it is unclear how many infringements have taken place: does an infringement count for the artefact as a whole or for each source file of a computer program? To answer this question, it must first be established whether a computer program should be considered as an integral whole, a collection, or a mere set of distinct files, and why. We argue that a program is a functional whole, availing of, and combining, arguments from mereology, granularity, modularity, unity, and function to substantiate the claim. The argumentation and answer contributes to the ontology of software artefacts, may assist industry in litigation cases, and demonstrates that the notion of unifying relation is operationalisable.

scholarly journals The Reference to ‘A Work or Software’ as the Factor Determining the Scope of the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) v. 1.2

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-196
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Żok
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Computer Program ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Property Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Intellectual Property Law ◽  
The Relationship

Free and open source software (FOSS) has undoubtedly become an important element of intellectual property law. It is therefore not surprising that the European Commission developed its own non-proprietary licence, i.e. the European Union Public Licence (EUPL). The article examines the reference to ‘a work of software’ to determine the scope of the licence. For this purpose, the paper discusses the reasons for the creation of the EUPL, the relationship between a work and software as well as the structure of a computer program. The following considerations also include the compatible licences listed in the EUPL Appendix. The article concludes that the reference to a work or software is not accidental because it removes serious doubts arising from the concept of a computer program. Thus, this legal solution may facilitate the wider adoption of the licence.

scholarly journals B2SMatcher: fine-Grained version identification of open-Source software in binary files

Cybersecurity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gu Ban ◽  
Lili Xu ◽  
Yang Xiao ◽  
Xinhua Li ◽  
Zimu Yuan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Identification Approach ◽  
Commercial Off The Shelf ◽  
And Function ◽  
Redundant Functions

AbstractCodes of Open Source Software (OSS) are widely reused during software development nowadays. However, reusing some specific versions of OSS introduces 1-day vulnerabilities of which details are publicly available, which may be exploited and lead to serious security issues. Existing state-of-the-art OSS reuse detection work can not identify the specific versions of reused OSS well. The features they selected are not distinguishable enough for version detection and the matching scores are only based on similarity.This paper presents B2SMatcher, a fine-grained version identification tool for OSS in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software. We first discuss five kinds of version-sensitive code features that are trackable in both binary and source code. We categorize these features into program-level features and function-level features and propose a two-stage version identification approach based on the two levels of code features. B2SMatcher also identifies different types of OSS version reuse based on matching scores and matched feature instances. In order to extract source code features as accurately as possible, B2SMatcher innovatively uses machine learning methods to obtain the source files involved in the compilation and uses function abstraction and normalization methods to eliminate the comparison costs on redundant functions across versions. We have evaluated B2SMatcher using 6351 candidate OSS versions and 585 binaries. The result shows that B2SMatcher achieves a high precision up to 89.2% and outperforms state-of-the-art tools. Finally, we show how B2SMatcher can be used to evaluate real-world software and find some security risks in practice.

An Algorithm for Gradual Patch Acceptance Detection in Open Source Software Repository Mining

2012 ◽  
Vol E95.A (9) ◽  
pp. 1478-1489
Author(s):  
Passakorn PHANNACHITTA ◽  
Akinori IHARA ◽  
Pijak JIRAPIWONG ◽  
Masao OHIRA ◽  
Ken-ichi MATSUMOTO
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Software Repository ◽  
Repository Mining ◽  
Software Repository Mining

Hacking Diversity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Dunbar-Hester
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Underrepresented Groups ◽  
Technical Production ◽  
Preferred Solutions

Hacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation. Yet surprisingly few women participate in it: rates of involvement by technologically skilled women are drastically lower in hacking communities than in industry and academia. This book investigates the activists engaged in free and open-source software to understand why, despite their efforts, they fail to achieve the diversity that their ideals support. The book shows that within this well-meaning volunteer world, beyond the sway of human resource departments and equal opportunity legislation, members of underrepresented groups face unique challenges. The book explores who participates in voluntaristic technology cultures, to what ends, and with what consequences. Digging deep into the fundamental assumptions underpinning STEM-oriented societies, the book demonstrates that while the preferred solutions of tech enthusiasts—their “hacks” of projects and cultures—can ameliorate some of the “bugs” within their own communities, these methods come up short for issues of unequal social and economic power. Distributing “diversity” in technical production is not equal to generating justice. The book reframes questions of diversity advocacy to consider what interventions might appropriately broaden inclusion and participation in the hacking world and beyond.

Web Based GIS Application using Open Source Software for Sharing Geospatial Data

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1224-1228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debasish Chakraborty ◽  
◽  
Debanjan Sarkar ◽  
Shubham Agarwal ◽  
Dibyendu Dutta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Geospatial Data ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Gis Application
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