As the bitter software dispute between Oracle Corp. and Google nears its seventh year, developers need to be more mindful than ever about using code written by others in their projects. The problem is that the average application incorporates so many external components it’s difficult to keep track of them all.

FOSSA Inc. is looking to change the situation. Its cause has attracted $2.2 million in seed funding today from Bain Capital Partners, Salesforce.com Inc. Chief Executive Marc Benioff, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen and several other notable angel investors. The cash infusion will help the startup widen the adoption of its license management platform, which promises to eliminate the legal drudgery involved in managing external code.

The first task that FOSSA promises to automate is identifying what libraries require special handling. Its software uses a “deep license scanning” mechanism to extract information about usage restrictions from all the external components in a project, including those nested inside other third-party assets. The system’s algorithms then scan the other parts of the application to identify compliance violations.

The software lists its findings in a neat list alongside remediation suggestions. According to FOSSA, many issues can be solved with a single click thanks to an attribution mechanism that draws upon about $50,000 worth of legal materials included in its software to automatically add disclosures where necessary.

After clearing the initial compliance problems, FOSSA keeps periodically checking up on projects to ensure that legal violations are not introduced into the code later down the line. For added measure, the software provides the option of importing license information in the form of a report that can be shared with users and other relevant parties.

FOSSA is available immediately under a freemium pricing model that lets developers scan up to five code repositories a month at no charge. The paid version removes this cap and provides a number of extra features for $499 per repository per month. The startup claims that its software has been piloted by several Fortune 500 companies as part of a 12-month private beta program. 

Source: StockSnap