050-100 Sample Questions & Answers
Open source software licenses, both copyleft and permissive, carry the most weight, alongside software fundamentals and cloud versus on-premises computing, content licenses like Creative Commons, business models, project management, and collaboration tools.
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- Question 1Advanced
Software Fundamentals · 051.2 Software Architecture
A retail corporation operates a legacy monolithic application handling user authentication, inventory tracking, order processing, and payment dispatch within a single deployable code artifact.
During peak seasonal sales events, the inventory service experiences extreme database locking and latency, causing the entire application to exhaust its thread pool and crash. The engineering leadership intends to transition toward a microservices architecture communicating via RESTful APIs.
Which architectural modification best mitigates the single point of failure and scaling constraint described in this scenario?
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Correct answer: B
In a monolithic architecture, all functional modules share the same runtime and database connections, meaning failure or resource exhaustion in one component (e.g., inventory) crashes the entire system. Decomposing into microservices decouples components into independently scalable services with dedicated data stores, interacting via standardized, stateless RESTful APIs. This isolates faults and allows specific high-demand services to scale horizontally.
flowchart LR Client[Client / Web App] --> Gateway[API Gateway] Gateway --> Auth[Auth Service] Gateway --> Inv[Inventory Service] Gateway --> Order[Order Service] Inv --> InvDB[(Inventory DB)] Order --> OrderDB[(Order DB)] - Question 2IntermediateSelect 2
Software Fundamentals · 051.3 On-Premises and Cloud Computing
An enterprise is planning to migrate its self-hosted PostgreSQL database and web application stack to a cloud provider. The compliance team mandates a strict division of operational duties. Which TWO responsibilities remain exclusively with the customer when deploying on an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud model? (Select TWO)
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Correct answers: A, D
In an IaaS deployment, the customer configures the database application, manages access privileges, ensures data integrity, and handles encryption at rest and in transit. The cloud provider only supplies raw compute instances and block storage volumes without inspecting or managing software workloads inside the guest OS.
Under the cloud Shared Responsibility Model for IaaS, the cloud provider manages physical hardware, hypervisors, and data center facilities. The customer retains full ownership and operational responsibility for the guest operating system (patching, configuration), user access controls, networking security groups, installed runtime environments, and application data.
- Question 3Beginner
Open Source Software Licenses · 052.1 Concepts of Open Source Software Licenses
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) established the Free Software Definition based on four essential freedoms numbered 0 through 3. Which freedom specifically guarantees 'the freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish'?
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Correct answer: B
Under the FSF Free Software Definition: Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the program as you wish for any purpose; Freedom 1 is the freedom to study how the program works and change it (access to source code is a prerequisite); Freedom 2 is the freedom to redistribute copies to help others; and Freedom 3 is the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.
- Question 4Intermediate
Open Source Software Licenses · 052.1 Concepts of Open Source Software Licenses
A software company originates and maintains an open source database. The company holds 100% of the copyright for all lines of code because all contributors signed a comprehensive Contributor License Agreement (CLA) transferring copyright assignment. The company distributes the software publicly under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2), while simultaneously selling commercial proprietary licenses to enterprise clients who embed the database inside proprietary closed-source appliances. What is this licensing strategy called?
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Correct answer: A
Dual-licensing (or multi-licensing) occurs when the sole copyright holder (or entity holding complete licensing rights) releases the exact same software codebase under two or more distinct licenses. Typically, one license is a strong copyleft license (like GPLv2) requiring derivative distributions to be open source, while the other is a commercial/proprietary license exempting customers from copyleft obligations in exchange for license fees.
- Question 5Advanced
Open Source Software Licenses · 052.1 Concepts of Open Source Software Licenses
While evaluating permissive open source licenses for inclusion in a commercial product, corporate legal counsel expresses concern regarding patent infringement litigation initiated by aggressive competitors. Which open source license incorporates an explicit patent license grant and an automatic 'patent retaliation' (defensive termination) clause that revokes patent rights if a licensee sues the licensor for patent infringement?
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Correct answer: D
The Apache License, Version 2.0 contains Section 3 ('Grant of Patent License'), which provides an explicit worldwide, royalty-free patent license grant from every contributor. Furthermore, it contains a defensive patent termination clause: if a licensee institutes patent litigation against any entity claiming that the software or contribution constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, any patent licenses granted to that entity under the Apache License for that work immediately terminate. In contrast, older permissive licenses like MIT and 2-Clause BSD contain no explicit patent grant or retaliation language.
- Question 6Intermediate
Open Source Software Licenses · 052.2 Copyleft Software Licenses
A hardware manufacturer embeds Linux-based firmware into a consumer smart television. The device uses software licensed under GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). Although the vendor provides the full source code for the firmware, the hardware uses cryptographic signature verification in ROM that refuses to boot any modified firmware image created by the user. Which concept specifically describes this scenario, and which open source license was designed specifically to prevent it?
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Correct answer: C
'Tivoization' (named after the TiVo digital video recorder) describes the practice of distributing hardware containing copyleft open source software alongside its source code, but utilizing hardware restrictions (such as signature-locked bootloaders) to prevent users from executing their own modified versions on that physical device. The Free Software Foundation drafted GPLv3 specifically to prohibit this practice by obligating distributors of 'User Products' to supply the necessary Installation Information (cryptographic keys/signatures) to install and run modified software.
flowchart TD A[Device Powered On] --> B[Hardware Bootloader] B --> C{Vendor Cryptographic Signature Valid?} C -- Yes --> D[Run Firmware Binary] C -- No --> E[Refuse Execution: Tivoization]
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