Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Expand on SBOM FAQ entry
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Explain claims regarding granularity and levels of abstraction.

Signed-off-by: Joshua Lock <joshuagloe@gmail.com>
  • Loading branch information
joshuagl committed Apr 13, 2023
1 parent 2b6d97b commit 7891bc3
Showing 1 changed file with 13 additions and 4 deletions.
17 changes: 13 additions & 4 deletions docs/spec/v1.0/faq.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -108,12 +108,21 @@ which can be refined to improve signal-to-noise ratio.
[SLSA Provenance] and the [Build track] are focused on trustworthiness of the
build process. To improve trustworthiness, Provenance is generated in the build
platform's trusted control plane, which in practice results in it being coarse
grained.
grained. For example, in Provenance metadata completeness of
`resolvedDependencies` information is on a best-effort basis. Further, the
`ResourceDescriptor` type does not require version and license information or
even a URI to the dependency's original location.

While they likely include similar data, SBOMs and SLSA Provenance operate at
different levels of abstraction. While an SBOM is not well suited as a
requirement for the Build track, SBOMs are good practice which may form part
of a future SLSA Vulnerabilities track. Further, SLSA Provenance can increase the
different levels of abstraction. The fine-grained data in an SBOM typically
describes the components present in a produced artifact, whereas SLSA
Provenance more coarsely describes parameters of a build which are external to
the build platform.

The granularity and expressiveness of the two use-cases differs enough that
current SBOM formats were deemed not a good fit for the requirements of
the Build track. Yet SBOMs are a good practice and may form part of a future
SLSA Vulnerabilities track. Further, SLSA Provenance can increase the
trustworthiness of an SBOM by describing how the SBOM was created.

SLSA Provenance, the wider [in-toto Attestation Framework] in which the
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 7891bc3

Please sign in to comment.