GOC

 

Protecode, a vendor of software for Bill of Materials (BOM) management and Intellectual Property determination, will demonstrate the Beta release of its preventative IP management product in San Francisco beginning today. 

 

A fully functional beta version will be offered free directly from the company's site. 

 

The software is a plug-in development tool that creates a BOM list and manages IP by detecting and logging content entering a software project, and checking its IP attributes against specific policies.

 

With the beta version comes product updates designed to allow automated tracking of source and binary pieces of code, open source or commercial, that enter any project. This lets open source creators create and publish pedigree information and help developers accelerate managed adoption of open source code. 

 

There's support for Eclipse's C Development Tool, now both Java and C/C++ are supported. Company officials say administration is now "streamlined with an enhanced GUI, complete with online help." Project primes can now enter the admin site, create a user ID and password, define a policy, and assign it to developers or a particular project in a simple operation.

 

The Global Intellectual Property database has been enlarged as well, company officials say, with "millions of source lines and binary files."

 

And nested IP is now supported, allowing users to look back many generations in external content.

 

"When a PC gets a virus, it has to be cleaned. Content produced since the infection is often lost. Developers face a different kind of infection risk: IP violations," writes industry observer Alistair Croll. "Whether it's open source code, a copyrighted library, or someone else's subroutines, code can carry baggage. Now startup Protecode wants to watch developers in real time, right in the IDE, to flag violations before they ruin an entire release."