Semantics of UsagePatterns DYNAMIC_LINKING and STATIC_LINKING is unclear

[ohecker]

(This story replaces/superseeds #257.)

As a user of Solicitor I want to be sure that the semantics of the UsagePattern is clear so that no legal evaluation done based on the Solicitor data / rules is jeopardized by wrongly selected/understood UsagePattern settings.

The UsagePattern describes how a component is linked to the overall application executable. Besides STANDALONE_PRODUCT which is used if the component is not linked at all to other components there are currently two possible values:

• STATIC_LINKING
• DYNAMIC_LINKING

The terms static and dynamic linking have some technical/historical origin (statically linking libraries into an executable using a linker vs. dynamically linking to a shared library at runtime). The semantics in the context of more recent technologies (Java, Spring-Boot, Quarkus, Angular React, ...) is often not clear. Furthermore the semantics need always to be regarded with respect to the impact on the evaluation of OSS license compliance. So the focus needs to be "how does the usage pattern affect the licensing situation" - which might different from a mainly technical driven interpretation.

From the legal standpoint (impact on OSS license compliance) STATIC_LINKING and DYNAMIC_LINKING mainly describe whether it is possible to distinguish/separate/exchange the components within the executable or not.

Within this story the documentation (user guide) should be extended to describe the semantics of the different values of UsagePattern so that a common understanding is ensured.

AC:

1. The user guide is extended towards the description of the different values of UsagePattern