Black Duck Helps Open Source Integration
"This is all about bringing the open source software into the organization at the architectural time of application development," says Bill McQuaide, Black Duck's executive vice president of product development. "Code Center is all about the upfront -- making informed decision and getting that decision approved expediently."
Code Center, which costs $50,000 for 25 user licenses (a $25,000, 10 user option is also available) offers a knowledge base of over 150,000 open source components and data concerning licenses, security vulnerabilities, support options and programming languages.
"If you're going to go about bringing open source components in, you want to search out what's available and have enough info to make an informed decision," McQuaide says. "What we want to do is provide capabilities much earlier in the development cycle."
McQuaid says that listening to their customers provided the basis for the Code Center product. "A lot of times what they were finding was there was a lot more open source in their products than what they thought was there," he says. "They wanted a more structured, more informed way to bring open source in the application development process."
The release of Code Center comes at a time when many companies are turning to open source solutions as a way to meet demanding time-to-market schedules and stagnant, if not shrinking, development budgets. "The economic situation is going to put pressure on companies," he says. "Organizations who develop software for a living are under increasing pressure to get the product to market faster while resources are being constrained. Open source is a great way to get through that."