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Technical Team/Use Cases/2.0

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We have several sources to begin pulling for SPDX Use Cases:

  1. The Pad from earlier conversations collected at <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/use-cases-collected-20-discussion">Use Cases For SPDX 2.0 Discussion</a>
  2. The old <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/spdx-use-case-1">SPDX 1.0 Use Cases</a> as well as the <a href="http://spdx.org/system/files/ecosystem.jpg">SDPX 1.0 Use Case Picture</a>.
 
I'd like to propose that we flesh out use cases here by having a brief summary listed here as a link to a more detailed child page.   Note, these use cases should be *doable* but in general not *required*.  Any item listed here that is not a link, should have a child page created for it.
 
  1. Code commits (original work intended for the project)
    1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/committers-provides-spdx-data-code-being-committed">Committer provides SPDX data</a>
    2. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/contributor-makes-commit-subject-existing-spdx-data-project">Contributor makes commit  subject to existing SPDX data of project</a>
    3. Contributor makes commit subject to existing SPDX data of a dual licensed project and selects one license
    4. Committer annotates source files with SPDX data
  2. Patches (original work intended for the project)
    1. Patch provider provides SPDX data for the patch
    2. Patch provider provides SPDX data for the patch indicating it is licensed however the hell its applied
    3. Patch provider provides patch subject to existing SPDX data of project
    4. Patch provider provides a patch that modifies existing SPDX data of project
  3. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/spdx-20-usecase-upstream-maintainer-providing-spdx-data">Upstream maintainer providing SPDX data</a>
    1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/upstream-maintainer-providing-spdx-data-source-archive">Upstream maintainer providing SPDX data in source archive</a>
    2. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/upstream-maintainer-providing-spdx-data-scm">Upstream maintainer providing SPDX data in SCM</a>
    3. Upstream maintainer providing SPDX data at a URL
    4. Upstream maintainer preparing release artifacts (including SPDX data).
  4. Unaffiliated third party provides SPDX data for a project
  5. Project maintainer incorporates another project
    1. Project maintainer incorporates another project by including source
    2. Project maintainer incorporates another project by including binary
    3. Project maintainer incorporates another copyrightable artifact by reference (think maven, possibly linking cases)
      1. by static reference (the referenced library is included with a redistribution)
      2. by dynamic reference (express runtime dependency on the external library, but not redistributing it)
      3. Maven case
    4. Project maintainer pulling individual files out of another project (subsetting)
  6. Intermediate packager (rpm, deb, etc) passing on and adding to SPDX Data
    1. Intermediate packager builds source package from upstream source
      1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/intermediate-packager-builds-source-package-upstream-source-provides-spdx-data">Intermediate packager builds source package from upstream source that provides SPDX data</a>
      2. Intermediate packager builds source package from upstream source that does not provide SPDX data
    2. Intermediate packager builds binary package from upstream source
      1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/intermediate-packager-builds-binary-package-upstream-source-provides-spdx-data">Intermediate packager builds binary package from upstream source that provides SPDX data</a>
      2. Intermediate packager builds binary package from upstream source that does not provides SPDX data
    3. Intermediate packager adds patches to upstream source 
      1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/intermediate-packager-adds-patches-upstream-source-provides-spdx-data">Intermediate packager adds patches to upstream source that provides SPDX data</a>
      2. Intermediate packager adds patches to upstream source that does not provide SPDX data
    4. Intermediate packager adds someone else's patches to upstream source
      1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/intermediate-packager-adds-someone-elses-patches-upstream-source-provides-spdx-data">Intermediate packager adds someone else's patches to upstream source that provides SPDX data</a>
      2. Intermediate packager adds someone else's patches to upstream source that does not provide SPDX data
    5. Intermediate packager subsetting upstream source
      1. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/intermediate-packager-subsetting-upstream-source-provides-spdx-data">Intermediate packager subsetting upstream source that provides SPDX data</a>
      2. Intermediate packager subsetting upstream source that does not provide SPDX data
    6. Intermediate packager chooses to distribute one of multiple available under licenses provided for by upstream (check with legal team)
    7. Intermediate packager reviews SPDX data provided by upstream.
  7. Build systems (build systems want to pass on SPDX data for the thing they are building)
    1. Yocto [Jack Manbeck]
      1. How does SPDX work in an environment where the sources aren't there, but are pulled from git or a mirror and patched.
    2. Maven [ Brian Fox ]
      1. Rolling into release artifacts things only referenced in the POM file
      2. Shading (subsetting) portions of a transitive dependency for inclusion in your artifact
    3. Continuous integration around SPDX files (fixing SPDX files for commits coming in etc).
  8. Aggregator aggregating many 'copyrightable items' for redistribution
    1. Linux Distros [Kate Stewart]
    2. Embedded Images (e.g. router images, switch images)
    3. SDKs [Jack Manbeck]
    4. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/spdx-20-usecase-reference-implementations">Reference implementations </a>[Jack Manbeck]
    5. Eclipse/OSGI distributions
    6. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/spdx-20-usecase-application-which-ships-documentation-media-software">Application which ships with documentation +  media + software</a> [Jack Manbeck]
    7. <a title="Use case details" href="http://spdx.org/wiki/application-which-ships-contrib-libraries">Application which ships with a contrib libraries</a> [Gary O'Neall]
    8. <a title="Use case details" href="http://spdx.org/wiki/application-which-ships-development-tools">Application which ships with development tools</a> [Gary O'Neall]
    9. Receiving what appears to be commercial software but that commercial software contains Open Source
    10. Receiving what appears to be opensource software but that opensource software contains commercial software
    11. Subsetting out only the shippable bits of stuff coming from an SDK
  9. Tool used to produce software infecting distribution license of the software itself [Kevin Fleming]
  10. Aggregators aggregating other aggregations for redistribution
  11. I just made a binary out of some source
    1. SPDX data indicating subset of the source that made it into a particular binary or binary package
  12. Asserting corrections to SPDX data provided by others further upstream
  13. Consumers receiving SPDX data
    1. Procurement needs to view it and review it
    2. Legal department needs to review
    3. Comply with licensing when there are multiple rights holders each with licensing use under a different license
    4. Bradley want to extract all rights holders for a particular file
    5. Multiple SPDX files you need to reconcile
    6. Recognizing the same SPDX data for the same code coming from multiple supply chain paths
    7. Incomplete SPDX data you may need to complete
    8. Flagging potential issues revealed by the SPDX
      1. License conflicts
      2. Listing out obligations
  14. Consuming code snippets (God help us all) (subfile pieces of code not originally intended for the project) [Gary O'Neall]
    1. Make sure that the license and copyright information for a snippet is reflected in the SPDX data for the file
    2. Track differently licensed snippets explicitely
    3. Handle the case where code is copied and pasted through online forums etc.
  15. Signoff/multiple signoff on SPDX data
    1. Contracts with multiple parties requiring signoff by all [Kate Stewart]
    2. Signing off on only a subset of the SPDX data (of an SPDX document in progress?)
  16. Auditor scenario: given big pile of 'copyrightable items', creating Bill of Materials [Peter Williams]
    1. Acceptable usage communicated by auditor [Peter Williams]
    2. Intended usage communicated by the auditee [Bill Schineller]
    3. Did the code that I shipped (the binaries) match the copyrightable items.
    4. <a href="http://spdx.org/wiki/collecting-enough-information-allow-auditor-make-recommendations-remove-or-not-component">Collecting enough information to allow auditor to make recommendations to remove or not a component</a>
  17. Sanity-checking Bill of Material
    1. outbound: validate that SPDX goes hand in hand with what's being shipped [Kirsten Newcomer]
      1. Check to see if the SPDX data provided matches the files provided [Kirsten Newcomer]
      2. Check to see if the SPDX file is internally consistent (do I have a license refs to match licenses)
    2. inbound:  validate that SPDX goes hand in hand with what's being brought in [Kirsten Newcomer]
      1. Chcek to see if the SPDX data matches the files you are shipping [Kirsten Newcomer]
      2. Check to see if the SPDX file is internally consistent (do I have a license refs to match licenses)
    3. SPDX lint
  18. Java complications [Richard Fontana]
    1. What to do about installers that download JDK directly from sun.
  19. Tooling to assist with copyright registration for changes between versions
  20. Conveying Encryption content (Export Control implications) of a package/file in a package [someone at collab summit]
  21. Conveying Security Vulnerability information [heard at Linux Collab summit]
  22. Linking
    1. Debian has an interest in only building things that are linking license compatible
      1. If a tool is consuming SPDX data to interact with heuristics.
  23. Migrating from one version of the SPDX spec to another (moving a file from SPDX 1.0 to 2.0 for example)
  24. Extensions:
    1. Communicate data beyond what is described in spec between consenting parties w/o breaking consumers that are not in the know [Peter Williams]
    2. Experimental improvements for new flavors data in SDPX files w/o breaking consumers that are not in the know. [Peter Williams]
    3. License list extensions, how do you handle folks who have more licenses than SPDX [Peter Williams]
    4. Decorating an already produces and signed SPDX dataset with extension data [Bill Schineller]
  25. SPDX-Lite:
    1. Allow a low investment SPDX producer to produce valid SPDX data
    2. Produce a valid SPDX dataset even if data is missing for some data we would like to
  26. Equivalence classes of binaries and tracking back to the same source and source SPDX data.
    1. Consider what to do about license metafiles
    2. COPYING files
    3. LICENSE.* files
    4. README.*
    5. Think about how to handle NOTICE files and Apache
  27. Helping to meet the obligations of the licenses
    1. How to capture attribution information for binaries
    2. Help with redistribution obligations
  28. Downstream consumers contributing patches to SPDX data to upstream.
  29. Look at a 'pingback' (URL string similar for blogs)kind of mechanism for original providers of SPDX (to allow them to figure out where it's used) [Andrew Hsu]
  30. Cloud
    1. Materializing a VM and making sure it's OK from a licensing mechanism
    2. SugarCRM case, obligation by virtue of using web service interface
  31. How are we going to handle Public Domain.
 

Cross-cutting concerns:

  1. Provenance (the need to optionally use signing to validate who said what)
  2. Trust
  3. Handling staleness of data
  4. Composite licensing
  5. Ease of sharing information
    1. Collecting tribal knowledge along the way 
  6. Guarding against file bloat
  7. Simple simple simple
  8. Clarity
  9. Automation/toolifiability
  10. Regionality

Themes:

 
Looking at these Use Cases, there are some underlying themes:
  1. Root of data (closer to upstream the better)
  2. Subsetting of copyrightable things (and their SPDX data) (Note: Subsets of copyrightable things are usually also copyrightable things)
  3. Aggregation of copyrightable things (and their SPDX data) (Note: Aggregations of copyrightable things are usually also copyrightable things).
 
 

 

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