Black Duck Software, maker of software compliance management solutions, has announced protexIP 4.3, the newest version of the companys platform that will help ensure that software code is in compliance with the new version of the General Public License, Version 3, to be made final this year.
“Unlike previous changes to GPL, Version 3 will happen 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, of Waltham, Mass. in a statement. “The change will impact companies around the world. Some executives will decide they dont 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.”
Black Duck officials said two primary enhancements in 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.
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 knowledge base has been restructured to provide an improved capability to handle more than one version of the same open-source component at the same time.
Beyond the enhancements to accommodate GPLv3, protexIP 4.3 also contains a new reporting function called a Code LabelT. In addition, Black Duck made enhancements to the products graphical user interface and SDK (software development kit), the company said.
Black Duck announced protexIP at the SD West 2007 conference in Santa Clara, Calif.
protexIP 4.3 will be available in April.