Black Duck and SQS prevent unintentional licence infringements

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Joint service package for software development

Cologne, 10 July 2007

The tool developer Black Duck Software and the consulting house SQS Software Quality Systems AG have put together a joint service package dealing with licence compliance management. The solution protects companies against unintentional licence infringements when using software they have developed themselves. It also enables companies to check that there are no legal doubts about components which they obtain from external third parties. Black Duck and SQS have signed a partnership agreement to put the package in place.

By offering this service, Black Duck and SQS are responding to a number of incidents in the recent past when companies have had to recall in-house-developed products or even pay fines. The courts established that the affected IT systems were using inadequately licensed open source software.
The service package for licence compliance management comprises a procedure broken down into four steps. The first step is for SQS experts to analyse the systems for the use of open source third-party code. They are able to uncover even disguised use of such code. The SQS team then evaluate the hits they have found, identify all the open source components and pinpoint whether they are compatible with the desired use. A comprehensive repair plan—the third step—lists the open source components that have been found and describes what consequences will follow from their licences. Finally, the SQS experts identify solutions to each critical finding, leading to a state of affairs that ensures compliance with the relevant licences. An initial audit of a system of up to 100 megabytes requires the input of roughly 15 to 25 person-days over a period of three weeks.
SQS uses the protexIP™ tool from Black Duck Software for the purposes of system analysis. protexIP™ is the world’s leading solution for the automated testing of software components for their origin and licensing, and is based on the world’s largest database of source code for open source software.
Going beyond the initial audit, the licence compliance management package from Black Duck and SQS ensures legal certainty in the long term. By engaging in continuous monitoring and analysis of newly created system components (compliance monitoring), the quality experts make sure that all the subsequent versions of the product or system always use code that is watertight under licence law.
Jörg Kleinz, Managing Partner of SQS AG, had these comments about the partnership: “Software development is almost always a globally distributed task these days. SQS offers many years of experience on the basis of more than 4,000 customer projects around the world. We are convinced that the functional depth and continuous optimisation of the protexIP™ platform from Black Duck provides clear benefits for our joint customers.”

Black Duck Software
Black Duck Software is the leading provider of solutions for software compliance management, which enable companies to be certain that control of development and management of their software systems is targeted and transparent. Users of Black Duck solutions derive the maximum benefit from open source software, while at the same time ensuring that they satisfy the obligations that are associated with use of the code.
The customer base of Black Duck includes end-user companies, product developers, outsourcing providers, legal offices and other organisations around the world which concern themselves with the intellectual ownership of software.
Further information is available from: www.blackducksoftware.com

SQS Software Quality Systems
SQS is the leading independent provider of software quality management and testing services in Europe. Based in Cologne, Germany, SQS currently employs more than 850 people in its branches in Europe—including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Ireland—and South Africa. SQS also has a minor stake in an operation in Portugal and a cooperative agreement with a company in Spain.
SQS is the first German company to have a primary listing on AIM (Alternative Investment Market) in London. SQS completed a secondary listing on the Entry Standard of the Deutsche Börse (German Stock Exchange) in Frankfurt am Main on 2 December 2005.
With over 4,000 successfully completed projects behind it, SQS has a strong customer base including half of the DAX 30 companies and 30 per cent of the companies in the STOXX 50. They include names like Dresdner Bank, Barclays, Deutsche Telekom, BP, DaimlerChrysler and Airbus, and various other enterprises from all business sectors.