Source code licensing as an essential aspect of modern software development

大多数大型软件应用程序不是从零开始构建的；相反，它们是通过组合几个组件创建的。这些组件有各种类型，例如库、数据库管理系统、独立程序和网络服务。在过去的十年中，各种各样的研究工作都集中在支持和改进组件驱动的软件开发过程的技术方面。然而，很少有人关注它的法律复杂性。由于商业和开源应用程序中都使用了广泛使用的开源组件（例如Eclipse和Apache foundation的组件），这方面变得更加复杂。基于组件的应用程序的创建者必须经常将具有不同许可证（通常是商业许可证和开源许可证）的组件组合在一起，以创建具有自己许可证的新软件应用程序。这些许可证中的每一个都将施加一定的限制，最终的系统应该遵守这些限制。随着时间的推移，组件（或最终系统）的许可可能会发生变化，旧的组件会被删除，新的组件会被添加，因此有必要将许可问题视为软件发展和维护周期的另一个重要关注点。本研究计划的主要目标是：1)创建模型，抽象出基于多个许可的组件创建和进化系统的挑战和问题；2)处理和解决这些挑战的方法和技术。这包括:

Most large software applications are not built from scratch; instead, they are created by combining several components. These components are of various types, such as libraries, database management systems, stand-alone programs, and network services. Over the last decade, various research efforts have focused on the technical aspects of supporting and improving component-driven software development processes. However, little attention has been directed toward its legal complexities. This aspect has been complicated by the availability of widely-used open source components (such as those of the Eclipse and the Apache Foundations) that are used in both commercial, and open source applications. The creators of component-based applications must frequently combine components with differing licenses (often commercial and open source) to create a new software application with its own license. Each of these licenses will impose certain constraints that should be honoured by the resulting system. Over time the licenses of components (or the resulting system) might change, old components dropped, and new ones added, making it necessary to consider licensing issues as another important concern of the software evolution and maintenance cycle. The main objectives of this research program are 1) to create models that abstract the challenges and issues of creating and evolving systems based on components with multiple licenses, and 2) methods and techniques to address and solve these challenges. This includes: