license: mit
task_categories:
- text-classification
size_categories:
- 10K<n<100K
OSS-License-Terms
Introduction
We collected 55,183 unique license sentences from 3,238 open-source software (OSS) licenses. From these, we randomly selected 19,883 sentences (36.03%) for joint annotation of license terms and attitudes, forming our supervised dataset. The remaining 35,300 license sentences constitute our unsupervised dataset. This unsupervised dataset is used exclusively for Domain-Adaptive Pre-Training (DAPT) to enhance the model's domain adaptability. During the Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) stage, we randomly split the 19,883 annotated sentences from the supervised dataset into training, validation, and test sets at a ratio of 7:1:2, comprising 13,919, 1,988, and 3,976 license sentences, respectively.
Based on this dataset, we developed the first LLM dedicated to identifying OSS license terms. Our work has been accepted for publication in the proceedings of the 47th International Conference on Software Engineering(ICSE 2025).
Definition of License Terms and Attitudes
License terms refer to the formal and standardized descriptions of software usage conditions, with each term representing a type of action a user (licensee) may perform. We collected 27 common license terms, covering 14 rights and 13 obligations.
We categorize the attitudes expressed in license terms into three types: MUST, CANNOT, and CAN. These represent what a licensee is obligated to do, prohibited from doing, and permitted to do, respectively, when using and distributing software protected by an OSS license.
Terms = {
'Place Warranty': 'offer warranty protection (or other support), place warranty on the software licensed',
'Add License Terms': 'provide additional license terms',
'Add Own Notices': 'add own notices in derivative works',
'Ask Distribution Fee': 'ask a fee to distribute a copy',
'Combine Libraries': 'place side by side with a library (that is not an application or covered work)',
'Copy': 'reproduce the original work in copies',
'Distribute': 'distribute original or modified derivative works',
'Modify': 'modify the software and create derivatives',
'Grant Patents': 'grant rights to use copyrighted patents by the licensor, practice patent claims of contributors to the code',
'Publicly Display': 'display the original work publicly',
'Publicly Perform': 'perform the original work publicly',
'Sublicense': 'incorporate the work into something that has a more restrictive license',
'Commercial Use': 'use the software for commercial purposes',
'Private Use': 'use or modify the software freely or privately without distributing it',
'State Changes': 'state significant changes made to the software, cause modified files to carry prominent notices',
'Add Statement For Additional Terms': 'place a statement of the additional terms that apply',
'Retain Copyright Notice': 'retain the copyright notice in all copies or substantial uses of the work.',
'Include License': 'include the full text of license(license copy) in modified software',
'Include Notice': 'notice text needs to be distributed (if it exists) with any derivative work',
'Offer Source Code': 'disclose your source code when you distribute the software and make the source for the library available',
'Rename': 'the name of the derivative work must differ from original, change software name as to not misrepresent them as the original software',
'Retain Disclaimer': 'redistributions of source code must retain disclaimer',
'Use TradeMark': 'use contributor’s name, trademark or logo',
'Give Credit': 'give explicit credit or acknowledgement to the author with the software',
'Include Install Instructions': 'include build & install instructions necessary to modify and reinstall the software',
'Liable for Damages': 'the licensor cannot be held liable for any damages arising from the use of the software',
'Keep Same License': 'distribute the modified or derived work of the software under the terms and conditions of this license'
}
Attitudes = {"CAN": "Indicates that the licensee can perform the actions, commonly used expressions include: hereby grants to you, you may, you can",
"CANNOT": "Indicates that the licensee is not allowed to perform the actions, commonly used expressions include: you may not, you can not, without, prohibit, refuse, disallow, decline, against",
"MUST": "Indicates that the licensee must perform the actions, commonly used expressions include: you must, you should, as long as, shall, provided that, ensure that, ask that, have to"}