Using LIBRARIES provided by suppliers are illegal?

^{Discussion aimed at PLC code provided by
equipment suppliers developed for TIA Portal}

I am not a lawyer.

When designing PLC code for my employer,
I mark these as Copyright.

My expectation is that these developed code will not be copied and used by others without written explicit consent from my employer that gives permission and states its limitation of use.

Now the "sticky toffee" problem..
Device suppliers provide to the public libraries (building blocks) to be used in Siemens PLCs.
Some of them are even open source. A brilliant example is Siemens' own "Library of General Functions".

These blocks being officially available to the public, my expectation is that I am free to use them and even customize. However these library code blocks are all marked Copyright! Even just pulling the code into a project is illegal - right?

Does that mean we have to formally ask to use the code?
Do we have to report every change we make of these codes?
Does the changes we make belong to its original author?

It would be great if suppliers would use another more open licensing type for cod they share with the public.

Jeff Casagrande

I suppose we can read to EULA's to death, but.....

If they provide the libraries under GNU license, they are free to use.

If you modify them, it becomes a sticky issue if you want to claim your own IP.  That will depend on various legal definitions of valid use and significant change. 

Everyone is free to sue.  The question really becomes what are the damages.  If you are selling code based on minor changes, then the originator has a case, even if they are giving it away.  Normally, this is easily solved with a simple Cease and Desist letter unless you really want to pursue it  In most cases, it is not worth anybody's time to do this.

The issue for me can go a little in another direction.

It happens that there are some improvement that can be made to code given by suppliers. Now if their licensing is put in such a way that you will be credited for positive changes that you send back to them... you might see people contributing to code development.

It is a bit of a win-win situation. Modifications are credited to the author (and his company!) (read: advertisement} and the supplier's library gets upgraded for others.

I am amazed on what brilliant stuff people do under community driven projects.

w

Jeff Casagrande

I assume that whatever you are doing fits that definition.

Yes. Your comments are valid for what I am busy with right now.
Supplying open source and then stating Copyright - does not make sense.

I dream of changing the 'system'.

Company ABC links to a Siemens PLC. ABC graciously provides coding / building blocks to be used in the Siemens PLC as to reduce the R&D for their customer.

If ABC should decide to provide open sourced blocks, then (my opinion) license the code in such a manner that development by the customer is encouraged and shared with others.

I hope Siemens consider this in the examples they give out to customers. There is just no sense in calling it "copyright" when they expect customers to learn from it.

I am impressed by the Library of General Functions that Siemens has published. It would be real nice if we from this Forum could extend this library for public use. AND the contributors are credited for what they did to it.

w

Jeff Casagrande

Everyone is free to sue.

 Indeed so..
[http://www.gocomics.com/ziggy/2016/08/14]