Related papers: Package upgrades in FOSS distributions: details an…
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) distributions are complex software systems, made of thousands packages that evolve rapidly, independently, and without centralized coordination. During packages upgrades, corner case failures can be…
While open-source software has enabled significant levels of reuse to speed up software development, it has also given rise to the dreadful dependency hell that all software practitioners face on a regular basis. This article provides a…
The open-source Linux operating system is available through a wide variety of distributions, each containing a collection of installable software packages. It can be important to keep these packages as fresh as possible to benefit from new…
Open-source software (OSS) supply chain security has become a topic of concern for organizations. Patching an OSS vulnerability can require updating other dependent software products in addition to the original package. However, the…
The Open Source Software movement has been growing exponentially for a number of years with no signs of slowing. Driving this growth is the widespread availability of libraries and frameworks that provide many functionalities. Developers…
Managing the software complexity of package-based systems can be regarded as one of the main challenges in software architectures. Upgrades are required on a short time basis and systems are expected to be reliable and consistent after…
The use of free and open source software (OSS) is gaining momentum due to the ever increasing availability and use of the Internet. Organizations are also now adopting open source software, despite some reservations, in particular regarding…
Much of the current software depends on open-source components, which in turn have complex dependencies on other open-source libraries. Vulnerabilities in open source therefore have potentially huge impacts. The goal of this work is to get…
Throughout computer history, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that critical software vulnerabilities can significantly affect the components involved. In the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) ecosystem, most software is…
The use of free and open source software is gaining momentum due to the ever increasing availability and use of the Internet. Organizations are also now adopting open source software, despite some reservations in particular regarding the…
This research analyzes complex networks in open-source software at the inter-package level, where package dependencies often span across projects and between development groups. We review complex networks identified at ``lower'' levels of…
Open source software (OSS) vulnerabilities threaten the security of software systems that use OSS. Vulnerability databases provide valuable information (e.g., vulnerable version and patch) to mitigate OSS vulnerabilities. There arises a…
In this paper we discuss the impact of open source on both the security and transparency of a software system. We focus on the more technical aspects of this issue, combining and extending arguments developed over the years. We stress that…
State of the art component-based software collections - such as FOSS distributions - are made of up to dozens of thousands components, with complex inter-dependencies and conflicts. Given a particular installation of such a system, each…
The use of third-party packages is becoming increasingly popular and has led to the emergence of large software package ecosystems with a maze of inter-dependencies. Since the reliance on these ecosystems enables developers to reduce…
The liberalization of software licensing has led to unprecedented re-use of software. Alongside drastically increasing productivity and arguably quality of derivative works, it has also introduced multiple attack vectors. The management of…
One of the most powerful features of R is its infrastructure for contributed code. The built-in package manager and complementary repositories provide a great system for development and exchange of code, and have played an important role in…
Although it is possible to increase confidence in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) by reviewing its source code, trusting code is not the same as trusting its executable counterparts. These are typically built and distributed by…
In open-source software (OSS), software vulnerabilities have significantly increased. Although researchers have investigated the perspectives of vulnerability reporters and OSS contributor security practices, understanding the perspectives…
This paper is an introductory discussion on the cause of open source software vulnerabilities, their importance in the cybersecurity ecosystem, and a selection of detection methods. A recent application security report showed 44% of…