Black Duck buys Koders

(A Black Duck spokesman says a picture of a hungry black duck would work well here. Rob Fergus of Birdchasers says black ducks like this little guy are threatened.)

Those looking at questions of profit should know that the press statement says Black Duck "acquired the assets of Koders." That's usually code for they didn't take the whole business, or its debts.

A statement in the release from Koders CEO Darren Rush seems to confirm this. “Black Duck is the ideal company to take over the Koders technology and our developer community,” he said.

In addition to maintaining the Koders Web site, Black Duck said it will incorporate its search technology into the rest of its portfolio.

In his statement, Black Duck CEO Doug Levin says Koders' code search will integrate well with Black Duck's existing component and fragment/file search capabilities.

Black Duck Software is a code management company, able to distinguish code under various licenses so companies stay in compliance with their licenses.

The last time I looked at merger activity in this space, back in October, I asked whether things were getting a bit frothy. This deal indicates the froth has been blown away.