Open Source Governance: BlackDuck acquires Koders
Savio Rodrigues reported that Black Duck Software, an intellectual property management firm delivering services to identify risks and vulnerabilities in an enterprise’s open-source code, acquired Koders, a free on-line search engine for open source software.
Interesting times by Zesmerelda
Today I asked Doug Levin, BlackDuck CEO, some feedback:
Black Duck acquired Koders, Inc. because we have broadened our offerings and now help companies find, approve, validate and manage open source components in their software development environment. Koders.com and Koders technology will play a key role in Black Duck’s future as a code search engine tightly integrated into future versions of our products, especially Code Center.
BlackDuck is willing to tap deeper into the market of open source library/directory. Savio commented the acquisition:
The Koders acquisition makes sense because more and more developers are developing by reusing code from external code repositories like Koders. Being able to tap into this source of code (pun intended) will help improve Black Duck’s code scanning capabilities. As a result, this acquisition will improve the level of information (and protection) that companies using OSS have at their disposal, whether the source being leveraged is from a traditional OSS project or an online code repository such as Koders.
Just like OpenLogic also BlackDuck is taking advantage of the absence of a Corporate actor to develop new services, not based on code production. Open Source Governance it’s an (open) issue, and I think we are seeing just the top of the iceberg at the present time.
We are going to live in interesting times, no doubt.
Roberto Galoppini and 
Doug Levin 6:24 pm on April 30, 2008 Permalink
As the industry matures I’m sure you will see business combinations which are interesting and make sense, and others which are vexing. Clearly, the combination of MySQL and SUN makes sense for customers and the companies. At Black Duck, we knew that the Koders fit with Black Duck made sense on many levels including with respect to vision, operationally, technology and go-to-market factors, and other considerations as well.
Roberto Galoppini 9:36 am on May 1, 2008 Permalink
Hi Doug, while I am still wondering if Sun-MySql merger makes business sense, I totally agree with you that we are definitely going to see more business combinations.
About Black Duck acquisition I believe you’re right, and I am open to report more about it in six months from now, keep in touch!