[Feature]: [FRSM-17] Does the software include provenance information that describe the development of the software? #17
Description
D5.2 p22+p31
Detailed Description
Good provenance metadata clarifies the origins and intent behind the development of the software, and establishes authenticity and trust. As a type of metadata this overlaps with the metadata called for in guiding principles F2 and F4.
Domain-agnostic comments
It is hard to check the relevance / correctness of this information, but it is possible to automatically check for existence.
It may also be necessary to record information about the way that the software has been developed, such as the development environment used. The methodology for building the software is tested in FRSM-13.
CESSDA comments
Git repositories include a commit history as a matter of course. CESSDA uses git repos on GitHub, and uses a branching model where each branch is prefixed with the issue tracker ticket number that it addresses.
Context
R1.2: Software is associated with detailed provenance.
Possible Implementation
domain-agnostic
| requirements | Software source code repository / forge | |
| method | Check the development metadata available from the code repository / forge for the software | |
| essential | The software source code repository / forge includes a commit history | |
| important | The software source code repository links commits to issues / tickets | |
| useful | The software project uses other tools to capture detailed machine readable provenance information. |
CESSDA
| requirements | Software source code repository | |
| method | Check the commit history of the code repository | |
| essential | Code repository contains commit messages | |
| important | Code that addresses an issue is developed in a branch prefixed with the issue number. | |
| useful | Links to Pull Requests are included in issue tracker tickets. |