10 New Open Source Projects to Watch

One of the most exciting things about open-source software is the sheer diversity of projects that are always under way. Aiming to recognize some of the most promising of those projects, Black Duck Software on Friday announced its 2010 open-source "Rookies of the Year" list.

Black Duck helps companies automate the management, governance, and security of free and open-source software in businesses. Working from a list of thousands of new projects launched in 2010, the company evaluated the popularity of each using a weighted scoring system that awards points for "commits" or changes to software within a project, the number of developers involved, and the number of Websites linked to the project. It then audited its findings and normalized the scores.

So which projects were the winners? Included among them were several names familiar even to those outside the open source world.