Assisting developers with license compliance

Software licensing determines how open source systems are reused, distributed, and modified from a legal perspective. While it facilitates rapid development, it can present difficulty for developers in understanding due to the legal language of these licenses. Because of misunderstandings, systems can incorporate licensed code in a way that violates the terms of the license. Our research first aimed at understanding the rationale of developers in choosing and changing licenses. We also investigated the problem of traceability of license changes. These two studies are fundamental components for understanding problems that developers face so that we can better support developers with licensing.