SD WEST (Booth 510) - Black Duck Software, the leading global provider of software compliance management solutions, today announced protexIP™/development 4.3, the newest version of the company’s platform that helps ensure software code is in compliance with licensing requirements. protexIP 4.3 will accommodate application development projects with code governed by the new version of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 3, to be made final this year.

The Free Software Foundation is managing an open process that will result in an updated version of the GPL, the license governing many popular open source projects. While contributors to the projects are deciding whether to move their code to the new license, companies will also decide their policies toward use of code governed by GPLv3. protexIP 4.3 includes enhancements to manage enforcement of these policies on software code that is developed, deployed or sold.

“Unlike previous changes to GPL, version 3 will be finalized when a significant number of companies rely on GPL-based code and applications within their critical business processes,” said Douglas Levin, president and CEO of Black Duck Software. “The change will impact companies around the world. Some executives will decide they want to adopt GPLv3 based applications, while others will adopt various policies. protexIP is a framework to implement whatever policy is determined across all portions of the development process.”

Experts agree the new version of the GPL will have a larger impact on the application development market than previous changes to other licenses. At the same time, the enhancements to protexIP enable organizations to address earlier changes in other licenses. Examples of these license migrations, which protexIP can now manage, include:

• The Apache Software Foundation's adoption of the Apache License 2.0.
• The Eclipse Foundation's adoption of the Eclipse Public License as a derivative of the Common Public License.
• The new BSD license, introduced by the University of California as a successor to the original BSD license.

Two key enhancements for GPL v3

Two key enhancements within protexIP 4.3 address the new GPL version directly. First, changes to the protexIP user interface allow users to view and compare how code matches to more than one version of the same software code. This is especially important when open source projects start moving to the new GPL version and will then contain code that matches both versions at the same time.

As an example, a manager runs protexIP 4.3 to review a project they’re responsible for, and protexIP indicates an 80-percent match with a version of the code under GPLv2 and a 98-percent match with a version of the code under GPLv3. A logical conclusion is that most of the component is governed by the new version of GPL. The manager can then determine if the use of this code under GPLv3 is approved based on company policy.

The second enhancement is to the protexIP KnowledgeBase, the library of open source, proprietary and other third-party code that the solution uses to compare components under development. With protexIP 4.3, the most comprehensive Code Print KnowledgeBase in the industry has been restructured in order to provide an improved capability to handle more than one version of the same open source component at the same time. This enhancement is necessary to enable the interface to evaluate a project against the two (or more) versions of the component in the KnowledgeBase to determine which might be under which version of the GPL.

protexIP 4.3 KnowledgeBase enhancements will allow customers to benefit from a library that is quickly updated with code governed by GPLv3 as projects announce their adoption of the new license. Black Duck employs a thorough process that scours the web and popular open source project listings for new code updates.

Other protexIP 4.3 Enhancements

Beyond the enhancements to accommodate GPLv3, protexIP 4.3 also contains a unique reporting function called a Code Label™.  With Code Label, users can create a report resembling a food packaging ingredients label indicating the percentage of code governed by various open source licenses. The concise representation clarifies protexIP results for a variety of audiences in an easy-to-recognize fashion.

Other protexIP 4.3 enhancements include:

• Refinements in the graphical user interface and improvements in system performance to allow users (developers, attorneys, and others) to more rapidly and easily use protexIP to analyze code, identify components in use, and create a Bill of Materials.

• Administrative and configuration enhancements that support a broader set of customer usage scenarios and are reflective of the increasing adoption and use of the protexIP platform. These include improvements in the areas of code analysis configuration, tracking of legal and business obligations associated with component use, and Bill of Materials report customization and standardization.

• New capabilities in the protexIP Software Development Kit (SDK) that allow users to access additional reporting information when integrating the protexIP platform with their existing development systems. The protexIP/sdk provides programmatic access to protexIP/development features and services via an application programming interface (API) based on open standards including the W3C Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and the Web Services Definition Language (WSDL).

Pricing and Availability

protexIP/development 4.3 will be available in April 2007. Pricing is based on the size of the code base managed by protexIP and the number of users accessing the solution.

About Black Duck Software
Black Duck Software^TM is the leading provider of software compliance management solutions that help companies govern how software assets are created, managed and licensed. Black Duck's offerings help businesses take maximum advantage of open source software while at the same time ensure that they satisfy the obligations associated with the code they use. Black Duck's customer base includes enterprises, product developers, outsourcers, law firms and other organizations worldwide that are concerned with protection of software intellectual property. For more information about Black Duck, visit www.blackducksoftware.com.