Advancing open source analysis and development
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FOSSology Advancing open source analysis and development |
This section provides defintions of Fossology terms used in the Fossology software and documentation.
Fossology team (and anyone else) please enter terms that you feel need to be defined to make Fossology easier to understand and use. Feel free to suggest terms whether or not you also have the definition for the term. If you see a term that does not have a definition, and you have the expertise to define it, please feel free to go ahead and supply the definition. Here is the format to use:
Perform the analysis of the data that has been uploaded. The FOSSology system is a combination of agents that run in series. Agents typically read data from the Software Repository and write the results to the Database.
The dashboard is a part of the Fossology user interface. It provides a quick and easy way to view database and disk status, so you can tell when your filesystem is full. The dashboard provides the following information: job queue status, database contents, overall database size, and disk space consumed by the repository.
Stores the analysis results generated by the Agents. The database also contains operational data like job control and an error log.
Provides structure to the contents of the repository. Since the repository can store hundreds of thousands of files, the directory provides organization and quick access to it contents.
A framework for software analysis tools. The current tools identify licenses in software, allow browsing of uploaded file hierarchies, and extract MIME type and meta data information. All of the software packages analyzed by FOSSology are maintained in its internal Software Repository, and the information collected by FOSSology (such as the license analyses) are maintained in its internal Database.
A web-based Graphical User Interface for the FOSSology software. Fossology's user interface provides easy access to it's various features and functions.
An uploaded file that is scheduled for, undergoing, or has completed, license analysis.
One or more jobs that are scheduled for, undergoing, or completed, license analysis.
Fossology has a number of job states, each of which indicates the latest status of a job. Possible job states are: Queued, Scheduled, Running, Finished, Blocked, Failed.
A legal description of appropriate use, distribution, and liability.
Some license agreements grant considerably more rights than most EULAs provide. A free software license grants the right to modify and redistribute the licensed software for any purpose, both of which would ordinarily be forbidden by copyright law. In some cases, these rights are accompanied by “copyleft” restrictions, adding requirements to redistribution. For example, some free software licenses require the distribution of complete source code along with the software or some specific form of attribution of authorship.
Further information about free software licenses is available from the Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html
Most open source licenses are free software licenses, but some are too restrictive to qualify. The distribution terms of open-source software is defined by the Open Source Initiative as follows:
A contract between a producer and a user of computer software which grants the user a software license. Most often, a software license agreement indicates the terms under which an end-user may utilize the licensed software, in which case the agreement is called an end-user license agreement or EULA. When the software license agreement is between the software licensor and a business or government entity, it is often implemented as a specialized form of contract with many clauses unique to the license and the nature of the software being licensed.
The license analysis report provides information on the software licenses detected by FOSSology.
The license heirarchy permits viewing individual licenses. However, it is common for individual licenses to fit into specific categories. License groups permit categorizing similar licenses. Groups also have attributes such as a name, description, etc. License groups can be associated with licenses or other license groups. Currently, there are three default license groups: Similar Text, FSF, and Fedora.
Each license has a distinct name and identifies a distinct license. However, “Phrase” is a catch-all category. Licenses that are unknown by the analysis system are usually identified by common phrases, such as “is distributed under…”. Phrases that are potentially associated with licenses are listed the Phrase category.
Stores the actual files loaded into the FOSSology system. While the Database stores meta information about files, the Repository holds the actual files.
The scheduler is responsible for queuing and running jobs. It runs the agents, making efficient use of available resources. The scheduler is a super-agent, responsible for spawning and managing all other agents. The scheduler balances required tasks with available resources.
