Validate your SPDX files for open source license violations

Abstract

Licensing decisions for new Open Source Software are not always straightforward. However, the license that accompanies the software is important as it largely affects its subsequent distribution and reuse. License information for software products is captured - among other data - in the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) files. The SPDX specification is gaining popularity in the software industry and has been adopted by many organizations internally. In this demonstration paper, we present our tool for the validation of SPDX files regarding proper license use. Software packages described in SPDX format are examined in order to detect license violations that may occur when a product combines different software sources that carry different and potentially contradicting licenses. The SPDX License Validation Tool (SLVT) gives the opportunity to check the compatibility of one or more SPDX files. The evaluation performed on a number of software packages demonstrates its usefulness for drawing conclusions on license use, revealing violations in some of the test projects.