That's the problem: there is no metadata with or in libssl.so.1 that I can reliably use to tell what this is
Eventually I can see a solution made of
1. create the metadata, say a simple YAMl or deb822 key-valud pair file that can then be included upstream or as an overlay 2. define a simple spec for binary formats to include a PURL (say in an ELF section or a WinPE string or sorts, where many of these are already stored) 3. create content-based tools like we have in PurlDB to match code, but may be more like a bunch of generated yara rules that would match symbols and strings from source to binaries and can recognize that libssl.so.1 is from OpenSSL 1.1.1g.
This then gives tooling a path to prompt users to provide missing context needed to fully qualify the PURL
Can you tell a bit more? Not sure I get what you meant
like if I'm scanning an arbitrary linux system, and I see `libssl.so.1` but I don't see it in the local package manager, I don't really have an option other than to call it generic.
I do agree that "generic" seems to be WAY overused though. Maybe tools that report on SBOMs, like FOSSA or whatever, should emit warnings to users about "generic" PURLs.