When Douglas Levin was a boy, he had a black duck as a pet. So when, in 2002, he founded a company to analyze source code and determine its origins, he chose to call it Black Duck. I like the name and, to be honest, I like the technology.
What the technology does is analyze source code and “finger print” it. (To be precise, it maps the pattern of the code, but it’s easier to think of it as a fingerprint). It can then look at code and determine its origin, with some degree of certainty. Even code that is not identical or partly rewritten can be identified. This is a useful capability because companies can “black duck” the applications they’ve written and make sure that no code has been pilfered from SourceForge and added in, in violation of some Open Source license. (Black Duck has some customers that have had to do a little recoding because they discovered such chunks of code).

It’s useful for companies whose business is to write software. It’s also useful for IT Departments that might like to know if Open Source has crept into their applications. It can also be used to test any code against any code, and thus the technology is often used under non-disclosure.

With the advent of web services, I expect Black Duck (which is already doing quite well) to prosper. It’s a viable business, made more viable by the current enthusiasm for the regulation of IT.

I have it on good authority, by the way, that Black Duck has not been used by SCO in the SCO v IBM dispute. Clearly it is the right technology for the job, but Black Duck has no desire to get involved. The sad fact is that SCO has become so radioactive that some companies don’t even want SCO as a customer. A friend of mine, who recently had cause to visit SCO on business, made me laugh by referring to Lindon, Utah (where SCO is headquartered), as Chernobyl. Presumably, he packed lead underwear before getting on the plane.

A correspondent pointed out to me last week that SCO is a known acronym in the nuclear industry for something that is radioactive. It stands for Surface Contaminated Object.