The Software Quality Observatory for Open Source Software (SQO-OSS) project has released an alpha version of Alitheia Core, an open-source software quality-checking tool.

The SQO-OSS project, which has received support from the European Commission, is being developed by a group of academic institutions, companies and open-source projects around Europe.

"By analysing public data sources relating to open source projects (email, bug tracking data, code, version control metadata) the system utilises metric-based assessment techniques to assess quality characteristics," according to the project's Web site.

The initial release should be considered a "usable alpha," according to a press release: "Whilst core functionality is provided, performance issues remain and customisation is currently disabled." It is available under the two-clause BSD open-source license.

Right now, a Web interface is available, but the project plans to plug into the Eclipse IDE (integrated development environment) as well.

Alitheia Core will serve as a counterpart to a growing industry around open-source software quality and usage within enterprises.

The tool may enjoy a slightly broader audience in Europe, at least for now. A recent Forrester Research study found that France and Germany had greater open-source adoption rates than the U.S. and Canada, although the U.K. lagged behind those countries.

Forty-five percent of European companies had concerns about the security of open-source software, compared to 71 percent of North Americans surveyed.