Black Duck Software has announced the release of a plug-in that will integrate the company's innovative protexIP suite with the popular, open Eclipse Platform. By automating key intellectual property (IP) management and license compliance functions and integrating them within the extensible Eclipse interactive development environment, Black Duck lets development teams improve their productivity through more effective use of open source code and other licensed software components, and at the same time reduce licensing-related business risks.

"The move toward component-based development and the exploding use of open source software have made it increasingly difficult for developers to attest to the origins and obligations associated with their mixed-IP software projects," said Palle Pedersen, CTO of Black Duck Software. "By integrating our protexIP system with the Eclipse Platform, we help make the developer's life easier by managing this complexity to avoid costly IP-related product delays and accelerate the software development process."

Black Duck's protexIP software compliance management system brings developers, lawyers, and business decision-makers together within an automated system that lets development teams identify and control what components are used within their code base and automate the compliance process across their organization to support business policies.

Eclipse is a platform for tool integration built by an extensive, open community of tool providers. Operating under an open source paradigm with a common public license that provides royalty free source code and worldwide redistribution rights, the Eclipse Platform provides tool developers with ultimate flexibility and control over their software technology. Eclipse provides a plug-in based framework that makes it easier to create, integrate and utilize software tools, saving time and money. Black Duck is using this framework to provide a protexIP plug-in to enable tool integration.

The protexIP Eclipse Plug-in

The protexIP Eclipse plug-in lets developers associate an Eclipse development project with a protexIP analysis project and perform automated code analysis and management tasks. The plug-in provides an easy tie-in to the protexIP Web-based application and server so users can perform their work seamlessly.

When users build their code within Eclipse, the protexIP Eclipse plug-in can now inspect it for software that may have originated from other sources before, during, and after compilation. After automatically identifying the code, protexIP presents licensing information through on-screen summaries and reports about obligations and conflicts which can then be evaluated and remediated by the assigned team members.