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An approach to Open-Source Software License Management using Blockchain-based Smart-Contracts

Authors:

Abhay Kumar,

Abhinav Gupta,

Lalit Mohan Sanagavarapu,

Y Raghu ReddyAuthors Info & Claims

ISEC '22: Proceedings of the 15th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference

Article No.: 20, Pages 1 - 5

https://doi.org/10.1145/3511430.3511448

Published: 24 February 2022 Publication History

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Abstract

Open source software is increasingly being used by various organizations. Open source licenses such as GPL, MIT, Apache, Mozilla, BSD, etc have varying terms and conditions for usage, modification, and distribution. Given the availability of source code for open source software, it is difficult to scrutinize adherence of licenses and more often than not it is left to the good faith of organizations and individuals. Violation of licensing terms knowingly or unknowingly can lead to copyright, ethical, compliance and security issues. In this paper, we propose a blockchain based approach in managing open source software licenses by enforcing certain practices to improve awareness and increase transparency, thus minimizing the possibility of violations. We present a solution design that relies on the use of 4 modules: InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), Smart contracts, Transaction manager (Meta-Mask) and a Permissioned Blockchain to enforce the conformance of licenses.

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Cited By

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Shamalka MBanujan KKumara B(2024)Blockchain and Smart Contract Based Approach to Mitigate Software Piracy2024 4th International Conference on Advanced Research in Computing (ICARC)10.1109/ICARC61713.2024.10499782(247-252)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARC61713.2024.10499782
Haque MPaul SIslam KDella MPaul RFahim S(2023)Blockchain Based Secure and Decentralized Smart Licensing of Charging Vehicles for Rajshahi City Corporation2023 International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (ICICT4SD)10.1109/ICICT4SD59951.2023.10303487(204-208)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICT4SD59951.2023.10303487
Kumar AKumar V(2023)An Approach to Secure Decentralized Storage System Using Blockchain and Interplanetary File System2023 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Distributed Systems Security (ICBDS)10.1109/ICBDS58040.2023.10346339(1-6)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICBDS58040.2023.10346339

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An approach to Open-Source Software License Management using Blockchain-based Smart-Contracts

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Published In

ISEC '22: Proceedings of the 15th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference

February 2022

235 pages

ISBN:9781450396189

DOI:10.1145/3511430

Editors:
Saurabh Tiwari
DA-IICT Gandhinagar, India
,
Sanjay Chaudhary
Ahmedabad University, India
,
Chanchal K. Roy
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
,
Meenakshi D'Souza
IIIT Bangalore, India
,
Richa Sharma
Lock Haven University, USA
,
Lov Kumar
BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, India

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 24 February 2022

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ISEC 2022

ISEC 2022: 15th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference

February 24 - 26, 2022

Gandhinagar, India

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Shamalka MBanujan KKumara B(2024)Blockchain and Smart Contract Based Approach to Mitigate Software Piracy2024 4th International Conference on Advanced Research in Computing (ICARC)10.1109/ICARC61713.2024.10499782(247-252)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARC61713.2024.10499782
Haque MPaul SIslam KDella MPaul RFahim S(2023)Blockchain Based Secure and Decentralized Smart Licensing of Charging Vehicles for Rajshahi City Corporation2023 International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (ICICT4SD)10.1109/ICICT4SD59951.2023.10303487(204-208)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICT4SD59951.2023.10303487
Kumar AKumar V(2023)An Approach to Secure Decentralized Storage System Using Blockchain and Interplanetary File System2023 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Distributed Systems Security (ICBDS)10.1109/ICBDS58040.2023.10346339(1-6)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICBDS58040.2023.10346339

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Recommendations

Open Source License Inconsistencies on GitHub

Managing license compliance in free and open source software development

Open source license alternatives for software applications: is it a solution to stop software piracy?

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