The present invention generally provides methods, systems, and articles of manufacture that provide a managed software development environment. In one embodiment, software programmers interact with the managed software development environment to develop a target software application. Embodiments of the invention prevent source code from being included in the target software application if the license for the project is incompatible with either the license under which the source code is available or with company policy. Embodiments of the invention further prevent linking to a library file if the library file is available under a license that is incompatible with the intended license of the target software application.