What is your perspective? Are you a Maintenance Tech? Systems Integrator? OEM Engineer?
What are your thoughts on the topic of source protection? Is it a scam meant to keep customers beholden to an OEM in perpetuity? Is it the only way your company can exist without being run out of business by copycats?
My perspective: Self employed 3rd party Field Service and Control Systems retrofit/design for the past 15 years, and have occasionally accepted offers of short term or longer term "permanent" employment from clients when times were tough, but never stopped being self employed (on the side) during those times. I'm currently in one of those periods of "permanent" employment, the longest one yet, for the past 3 years. In my role I design, build, and program control systems for certain production equipment that we build in-house and I assist the Maintenance department with higher-level troubleshooting endeavors.
I'm currently assisting my day job employer vetting options, sourcing a new OEM for a production line, and every one of them I have spoken to (all European, which is relevant for reasons I hope someone can shed light on) have been very unaccommodating on this topic. I ask if they will provide unprotected PLC programs and the answer is predictably a diplomatic version of "absolutely not, idiot. Not even with a NDA." The reasons they cite are commonly "because you'll make changes that will kill someone" and "because any changes you make, will render us wholly incapable of ever providing support for that machine in the future." With some particularly pointed badgering I did get one of them to confess that "we make very little money on sales. The bulk of our profit comes from service, and if we gave everyone the ability to cut us out of service then we would go bankrupt."
My thoughts: As 3rd party Field Service, a significant portion of my work has been supporting older equipment and/or equipment for which the OEM has gone belly-up. No drawings available, no PLC program backup, and if I can't get it running then it either becomes a controls retrofit job or it serves brief duty as a monument in memorial to productivity, before being recycled. For that reason alone I would never purchase or recommend purchase of any equipment for which at least a protected copy of programs is not provided for safekeeping.
But I have deeper concerns than just safekeeping. In my opinion, if I am (my employer is) going to spend several millions of dollars on a production line then I (my employer) should actually own that line. Paying vast sums of money for the privilege of giving the hardware a parking spot and putting it to use while the OEM retains sole ownership over the knowledge of how it works and the ability to troubleshoot it, does not constitute ownership. That is what I think of as being closer to a perpetual lease, and if leasing is the business model that the OEM actually wants to operate under, then they should simply present it that way. Stop falsely presenting it as a purchase when you'll never let your customers actually own what they "bought."
I've never felt the need to password protect any PLC code that I've created, but I am also not an OEM so I don't have what might be relevant experience from their perspective. I always download the complete program with comments and no password for the benefit of "the next guy" because that guy will probably be me, but if it isn't, that's fine too. I think that password protecting a PLC program (and holding the password hostage from the people who paid for the equipment) defeats the whole purpose of using a PLC. The original purpose of PLCs was simplify relay controls in a way that maintenance and electricians would find intuitive and still be able to troubleshoot. Who gives a rat's apples if electricians can or can't understand something that they can't even access? If you're going to make the program inaccessible then you might as well just program it in C# and run it on a computer. If you're a Maintenance Manager and you want all your programs password protected so that the new hire kid doesn't screw around and turn a palletizer into a bloodthirsty man-smasher, fine. But if you're an OEM don't treat customers like they're new hire kids.
Or am I wrong?
What are your thoughts on the topic of source protection? Is it a scam meant to keep customers beholden to an OEM in perpetuity? Is it the only way your company can exist without being run out of business by copycats?
My perspective: Self employed 3rd party Field Service and Control Systems retrofit/design for the past 15 years, and have occasionally accepted offers of short term or longer term "permanent" employment from clients when times were tough, but never stopped being self employed (on the side) during those times. I'm currently in one of those periods of "permanent" employment, the longest one yet, for the past 3 years. In my role I design, build, and program control systems for certain production equipment that we build in-house and I assist the Maintenance department with higher-level troubleshooting endeavors.
I'm currently assisting my day job employer vetting options, sourcing a new OEM for a production line, and every one of them I have spoken to (all European, which is relevant for reasons I hope someone can shed light on) have been very unaccommodating on this topic. I ask if they will provide unprotected PLC programs and the answer is predictably a diplomatic version of "absolutely not, idiot. Not even with a NDA." The reasons they cite are commonly "because you'll make changes that will kill someone" and "because any changes you make, will render us wholly incapable of ever providing support for that machine in the future." With some particularly pointed badgering I did get one of them to confess that "we make very little money on sales. The bulk of our profit comes from service, and if we gave everyone the ability to cut us out of service then we would go bankrupt."
My thoughts: As 3rd party Field Service, a significant portion of my work has been supporting older equipment and/or equipment for which the OEM has gone belly-up. No drawings available, no PLC program backup, and if I can't get it running then it either becomes a controls retrofit job or it serves brief duty as a monument in memorial to productivity, before being recycled. For that reason alone I would never purchase or recommend purchase of any equipment for which at least a protected copy of programs is not provided for safekeeping.
But I have deeper concerns than just safekeeping. In my opinion, if I am (my employer is) going to spend several millions of dollars on a production line then I (my employer) should actually own that line. Paying vast sums of money for the privilege of giving the hardware a parking spot and putting it to use while the OEM retains sole ownership over the knowledge of how it works and the ability to troubleshoot it, does not constitute ownership. That is what I think of as being closer to a perpetual lease, and if leasing is the business model that the OEM actually wants to operate under, then they should simply present it that way. Stop falsely presenting it as a purchase when you'll never let your customers actually own what they "bought."
I've never felt the need to password protect any PLC code that I've created, but I am also not an OEM so I don't have what might be relevant experience from their perspective. I always download the complete program with comments and no password for the benefit of "the next guy" because that guy will probably be me, but if it isn't, that's fine too. I think that password protecting a PLC program (and holding the password hostage from the people who paid for the equipment) defeats the whole purpose of using a PLC. The original purpose of PLCs was simplify relay controls in a way that maintenance and electricians would find intuitive and still be able to troubleshoot. Who gives a rat's apples if electricians can or can't understand something that they can't even access? If you're going to make the program inaccessible then you might as well just program it in C# and run it on a computer. If you're a Maintenance Manager and you want all your programs password protected so that the new hire kid doesn't screw around and turn a palletizer into a bloodthirsty man-smasher, fine. But if you're an OEM don't treat customers like they're new hire kids.
Or am I wrong?