[Project]: License Changes and Forking

### Project Name (1 - 3 words)

License Changes and Forking

### Description

License Change: Can we predict the likelihood of a license change for an open source project from an open source license to a non-open source or more restrictive license?

Forking: What is the impact of a fork on the health of the original project and how does this compare with health of the fork?

An unexpected change to a non-open-source license or more restrictive open source license that limits how the project can be used to exclude how it is being used in recent past by 3rd parties.

- Can a large enough dataset of examples be generated where license changes have occurred?
- Can metadata metrics be found that seem to correlate with repositories where license changes have occurred?
- How predictive are those metadata metrics in the sense of when they appear in a repository (looking back in time)?
- Can deps.dev or ecosyste.ms APi be used to identify all repositories with a business source or other license that is not open source and people tend to be concerned about?
- Can the GitHub API or git clone be used to identify a subset of all the repositories in step 1 that had a different license in their first commit to the repository?
- What might be metadata that correlates to risk of license change?
- As there is some ideas that the risk of a license change is higher in certain types of companies, can there be analysis on all the repositories in the organization and does that correlate to the “type of company” that has higher change of license change?

I think we also need to build and maintain a better dataset for license changes unless someone can find one that someone else already maintains? For now, this seems to be the most comprehensive list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_formerly_open-source_or_free_software

I also think that we need to consider that this is a rare event when we start to model this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_events

This is often related to Elephant Factor, which refers to too much control by a single company. These negative events in a project’s life that are strongly associated with too much single company control, meaning they are different than what occurs in a project with a diverse community of contributors and maintainers.

Note: We've combined these 2 ideas into one project because license changes are a common reason for project forking.

### Related Links

_No response_

Note that we also have a [Project Scope Template doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/13iLNDfqJ8nuwBGEyJuFutcT7KRNT6JwFrSlJN_5f4o4/edit) that you can use to think about the project details if you find it useful (not required).

### How would you like to be involved in this project?

I am interested in this project, but do not plan to work on it myself

### Additional Notes.

_No response_