True cost: Managing open-source and third-party code - SD Times

▤ Summary

While there are immediate advantages realized by using third-party code, there are also several challenges that can arise: governing the quality, security, licensing and other intellectual property (IP) attributes are imperative to avoid risks and potential downstream costs of using third-party software. This article will look at the costs (in terms of person days and dollars) associated with managing third-party code in a hypothetical single-product organization of less than 200 people. This is called creating a “Bill of Materials” (BoM) for the portfolio, and is typically accomplished through a manual audit or automated scanning of the codebase. Depending on which part of the world this hypothetical organization operates in, as well as the prevailing labor rate, we can translate the effort into dollar value. During the process of building the BoM and checking the licenses, export control obligations and security vulnerabilities, it’s quite possible that an issue will be uncovered that needs to be fixed.

▦ Linked Companies

Synplicity

$1B+

Protecode

$1M to $5M