InfoWorld: Who would your primary competitor be?

Levin: In-house solutions cobbled together by companies. We frequently go into banks in New York City, manufacturing companies in the Midwest, companies in Europe, and various other places all over the world, and what we find are cobbled-together solutions. We don't find Palamida. They're not even mentioned. There are companies that have mentioned Palamida in California, but they're relatively few. Palamida is a scanning tool. It is a small company in comparison to Black Duck. We have literally hundreds of customers, they may have a few.

InfoWorld: How many companies today are at risk because they unknowingly use -- I mean there's no definite number of course -- but how many companies would you say are at risk because they unknowingly use proprietary software code in an open source fashion without proper permissions?

Levin: Typically, larger companies that have large groups of developers are more at risk than smaller companies. And the reason why is because with larger companies, you have a larger span of control that you have to maintain over the developer group. Also, larger companies have a tendency to outsource to areas like India or China and other places who don't respect intellectual property as much as the U.S. does or other countries, like European countries.

InfoWorld: So would you say that outsourcing to other lands is an issue. What could happen to a company that unknowingly uses somebody else's software?