The Open-Source Detector

McDutchie writes "With open-source related lawsuits on the rise, a market is developing for automated tools that detect the presence of open-source code within larger application development environments. Palamida Inc. stepped in with IP Amplifier 3.0, essentially a search tool and a database that consists of more than 38 million of the most commonly used open-source files. Something Google-inspired called CodeRank is claimed to match code against the database. Hmm... maybe someone should run it on this, or even this." Of course, some open source code is perfectly welcome in commercial software, even if that software's code is not itself open; it's no secret or surprise that Microsoft, for instance, has taken advantage in some products of BSD-licensed code.

Comments

Re:windows already has some

[DaHat]

FTP.exe still contains the string regarding portions being copyrighted by the California Board of Regents... but why would anyone go after Microsoft for using BSD licensed code in their products? Last I checked, the BSD licenses was more 'free' than the GPL, permitting someone to keep their changes to themselves and be free to uses it how they see fit, provided they give props, which does and has happened.