IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
An Exploratory Study of Copyright Inconsistency in the Linux Kernel
Summary :
Software copyright claims an exclusive right for the software copyright owner to determine whether and under what conditions others can modify, reuse, or redistribute this software. For Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), it is very important to identify the copyright owner who can control those activities with license compliance. Copyright notice is a few sentences mostly placed in the header part of a source file as a comment or in a license document in a FOSS project, and it is an important clue to establish the ownership of a FOSS project. Repositories of FOSS projects contain rich and varied information on the development including the source code contributors who are also an important clue to establish the ownership. In this paper, as a first step of understanding copyright owner, we will explore the situation of the software copyright in the Linux kernel, a typical example of FOSS, by analyzing and comparing two kinds of datasets, copyright notices in source files and source code contributors in the software repositories. The discrepancy between two kinds of analysis results is defined as copyright inconsistency. The analysis result has indicated that copyright inconsistencies are prevalent in the Linux kernel. We have also found that code reuse, affiliation change, refactoring, support function, and others' contributions potentially have impacts on the occurrence of the copyright inconsistencies in the Linux kernel. This study exposes the difficulty in managing software copyright in FOSS, highlighting the usefulness of future work to address software copyright problems.
- Publication
- IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E104-D No.2 pp.254-263
- Publication Date
- 2021/02/01
- Publicized
- 2020/11/17
- Online ISSN
- 1745-1361
- DOI
- 10.1587/transinf.2020EDP7107
- Type of Manuscript
- PAPER
- Category
- Software Engineering
Authors
Shi QIU
Osaka University
Daniel M. GERMAN
University of Victoria
Katsuro INOUE
Osaka University
Keyword
Latest Issue
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Shi QIU, Daniel M. GERMAN, Katsuro INOUE, "An Exploratory Study of Copyright Inconsistency in the Linux Kernel" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information,
vol. E104-D, no. 2, pp. 254-263, February 2021, doi: 10.1587/transinf.2020EDP7107.
Abstract: Software copyright claims an exclusive right for the software copyright owner to determine whether and under what conditions others can modify, reuse, or redistribute this software. For Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), it is very important to identify the copyright owner who can control those activities with license compliance. Copyright notice is a few sentences mostly placed in the header part of a source file as a comment or in a license document in a FOSS project, and it is an important clue to establish the ownership of a FOSS project. Repositories of FOSS projects contain rich and varied information on the development including the source code contributors who are also an important clue to establish the ownership. In this paper, as a first step of understanding copyright owner, we will explore the situation of the software copyright in the Linux kernel, a typical example of FOSS, by analyzing and comparing two kinds of datasets, copyright notices in source files and source code contributors in the software repositories. The discrepancy between two kinds of analysis results is defined as copyright inconsistency. The analysis result has indicated that copyright inconsistencies are prevalent in the Linux kernel. We have also found that code reuse, affiliation change, refactoring, support function, and others' contributions potentially have impacts on the occurrence of the copyright inconsistencies in the Linux kernel. This study exposes the difficulty in managing software copyright in FOSS, highlighting the usefulness of future work to address software copyright problems.
URL: https://global.ieice.org/en_transactions/information/10.1587/transinf.2020EDP7107/_p
Copy
@ARTICLE{e104-d_2_254,
author={Shi QIU, Daniel M. GERMAN, Katsuro INOUE, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information},
title={An Exploratory Study of Copyright Inconsistency in the Linux Kernel},
year={2021},
volume={E104-D},
number={2},
pages={254-263},
abstract={Software copyright claims an exclusive right for the software copyright owner to determine whether and under what conditions others can modify, reuse, or redistribute this software. For Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), it is very important to identify the copyright owner who can control those activities with license compliance. Copyright notice is a few sentences mostly placed in the header part of a source file as a comment or in a license document in a FOSS project, and it is an important clue to establish the ownership of a FOSS project. Repositories of FOSS projects contain rich and varied information on the development including the source code contributors who are also an important clue to establish the ownership. In this paper, as a first step of understanding copyright owner, we will explore the situation of the software copyright in the Linux kernel, a typical example of FOSS, by analyzing and comparing two kinds of datasets, copyright notices in source files and source code contributors in the software repositories. The discrepancy between two kinds of analysis results is defined as copyright inconsistency. The analysis result has indicated that copyright inconsistencies are prevalent in the Linux kernel. We have also found that code reuse, affiliation change, refactoring, support function, and others' contributions potentially have impacts on the occurrence of the copyright inconsistencies in the Linux kernel. This study exposes the difficulty in managing software copyright in FOSS, highlighting the usefulness of future work to address software copyright problems.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1587/transinf.2020EDP7107},
ISSN={1745-1361},
month={February},}
Copy
TY - JOUR
TI - An Exploratory Study of Copyright Inconsistency in the Linux Kernel
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SP - 254
EP - 263
AU - Shi QIU
AU - Daniel M. GERMAN
AU - Katsuro INOUE
PY - 2021
DO - 10.1587/transinf.2020EDP7107
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SN - 1745-1361
VL - E104-D
IS - 2
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Y1 - February 2021
AB - Software copyright claims an exclusive right for the software copyright owner to determine whether and under what conditions others can modify, reuse, or redistribute this software. For Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), it is very important to identify the copyright owner who can control those activities with license compliance. Copyright notice is a few sentences mostly placed in the header part of a source file as a comment or in a license document in a FOSS project, and it is an important clue to establish the ownership of a FOSS project. Repositories of FOSS projects contain rich and varied information on the development including the source code contributors who are also an important clue to establish the ownership. In this paper, as a first step of understanding copyright owner, we will explore the situation of the software copyright in the Linux kernel, a typical example of FOSS, by analyzing and comparing two kinds of datasets, copyright notices in source files and source code contributors in the software repositories. The discrepancy between two kinds of analysis results is defined as copyright inconsistency. The analysis result has indicated that copyright inconsistencies are prevalent in the Linux kernel. We have also found that code reuse, affiliation change, refactoring, support function, and others' contributions potentially have impacts on the occurrence of the copyright inconsistencies in the Linux kernel. This study exposes the difficulty in managing software copyright in FOSS, highlighting the usefulness of future work to address software copyright problems.
ER -
English
