Protecode’s portfolio of Software Lifecycle IP Management™ solutions enable the implementation of  a straightforward process for the safe and efficient adoption of open source, outsourced or any other 3rd party software.

Named the Software Adoption Workflow TM (SAW), this process enables enterprises to achieve mandated IP governance and effective rationalization of their source code assets, increasing corporate value and reducing costs.

Protecode’s SAW is the industry’s first instantiation of an workflow process affordable even to small and mid-size enterprises. This is achievable thanks to the leading performance and low cost of Protecode’s portfolio of Software Lifecycle IP Management tools, which are built within a unified architecture to allow easy scalability and flexible evolution.

Patented Protecode technques for real-time checking of legal obligations and high useabilty of Protecode tools implement an effectively simple 5 stage process that gives developers full freedom in selecting the best open source solutions because it no longer mandates apriori approval of each and every piece of code brought in by the developer. 

This process does not require any special training of software developers and does not disturb the normal process of  development. The 5 specific stages are:

• Central definition of an Intellectual Property (IP) and legal compliance policy acceptable to the organization project.
• This stage is initiated by development/business manager together with legal counsel and captured by the Protecode IP Policy Administrator™.
• This stage also captures the mandated workflow in case of detection of policy violations in the course of subsequent code analyses and software development activities.

• Legal compliance analysis of legacy code or of code acquired from suppliers or subcontractors – automatically executed by the Enterprise IP Analyzer™
• This stage results in the establishment of a code Pedigree Database
• An interactive report detailing the content and legal obligations of the analyzed code is available on demand by any authorized personnel at any time.
• The analysis is performed in conjunction with either an on-premises Enterprise IP Signatures (EIPS) database or the Protecode Global IP Signatures (GIPS) database, which contains the patent-protected signatures of millions of public project software files and is continuously updated with the signatures of all new public files.

• Real-time and unobtrusive detection of legal obligations of any new code brought into the project – performed unobtrusively by the Developer IP Assistant™ at each workstation.
• The Pedigree Database is automatically updated when the workfile is saved or checked-in to the project repository
• No developer training is necessary.
• The developer is notified only if there is a violation of the IP policy, in which case they are requested to justify acceptance of code (e.g. for internal use only) or to change it for acceptance by IP policy.
• Development managers can also be alerted as specified by the mandated workflow in the IP policy.
• An interactive report detailing the content and legal obligations of the analyzed code is available on demand by any authorized personnel at any time.

• Automatic analysis by the Library IP Auditor ™ of any code that is deposited into the organization’s Source Control Management (SCM) library.
• IP attributes are checked against established IP policies through Protecode’s repository plugins.
• The Pedigree Database is updated automatically.
• Alerts are provided, as specified by the mandated workflow in the IP policy.
• A Software Bill of Materials is provided together with a certification of compliance to legal obligations as per established IP policy.
• The Pedigree Database is updated automatically.

Thanks to the level of useability, scalability and performance achieved by Protecode tools, even very small software organizations can adopt the Software Adoption  Workflow process.

Now, all software organizations, independent of size and location, can take advantage of open source software and outsourcing to accelerate their development, reduce their costs, and remain confident that all licensing and copyright obligations are understood and adhered to.