Open source in industrial automation

"If you are good at your job, you don't need to learn from others".
This is what I read in a recent post about the state of using open-source software in industrial automation. There are so many misconceptions about open-source software amongst PLC-programmers, I decided to go through some of the misconceptions that were stated in the post.

Please support this channel by either:
- A donation by using the "Thanks" button under the video

0:00 Introduction
1:12 "You don't need to learn from others!"
4:00 "Just as Facebook never does open-source, neither should I!"
6:35 "No code from unknown source thanks!"
8:04 "You can't force me!"
8:55 "I want to keep everything for myself!"
10:29 Ending words

#plc #opensource #programming

[WilmerAriza]

Critics are the same people that pay Rockwell to give them technical support.

[pawelwojdaRTIQG]

I loved the last comment.
Ones I worked in a company that underwent cyber attack so most of the IP was stolen including the PLC source code.
My first thought was that this is going to be embarrassing when someone opens the PLC code and finds out how badly it was written ;)
Anyway, I think that open source sounds great and at some point I am planning to share some of my library ideas, but first I need to make sure I will not ridicule myself by doing it.

[ryanfitzgerald]

Great topic! Clearly many of commenters you highlighted need a dose of humility! I manage a team of industrial automation developers and engineers and no one is expected to write code from scratch. We all learn based on examples of good and bad programming. Depending on our customer, we may use the customer's code library or our own code library. We have loosely termed our code library non-closed source: open to the customer, not shared outside. Developing our library has taken years and we would never start from scratch unless there was a fundamental shift in technology. Open sourcing, at least within the sector, might be possible. Who knows?

[andrewkibor]

Yes, I remember coming across that post. Being pro opens-source, I was not too happy with some of the comments I saw. Glad you put out this video to clarify some things.

[CodeX]

This video is Gold ❤️❤️ "Open source is about collaborating; Not competing"

[vfryhn]

Wow this is amazing, I'm coming from web development where there are lots of open source versions for almost everything you can imagine and that helps thousands of new people to get better knowledge it really surprises me how closed is everything here in the industrial automation field

[ahuca]

1:32 "Build your knowledge, not your ego" is the most fitting feedback I could think of to give to the person who made this comment.

I think you have done a great job in this video in clearing up the myths and misconceptions about open-source. A concept and practice that is clearly still very alien to too many people.

[mirosawboniewicz]

A programmer, who said, that everything can do himself using logic only should use keyboard with only 2 buttons: "1" and "0", because language, IDE and libraries were written by someone else.
This is a peak of "Mount Stupid".

[Hudyvolt]

Hi Jakob. I love your videos, thank you for making them. I am not a full time developer, but a process engineer which works with assembly machines. I need to debug and fix the bugs quite often because the machine is not working as it should. And rarely it is an easy task due to poorly written code. So I think the last comment is the most true.

[PTKu]

Thanks Jakob for this... I did not have strength to go through that thread on LinkedIn... it was so painful to read... you made it so funny and entertaining! I really enjoyed it!

[andrearichetta_Arduino]

Great video as usual, and the topic is very important . You know my take on this, I don't have to explain ;) but you pointed out most of the daily fears of the industrial world we face... the nice parta is that the Open Source revolution is started, now the only thing we must do is keeping the ball rolling.

[codingplc]

Great video. I'm glad that you touched on the topic. Waiting for more videos.

[hfdbsbr]

I think that's so true. Thank you for share this subject

[TradieTrev]

Oh I know my code sucks! I'm just happy when it works lol! Had a great childhood experience learning BASIC sharing our game code; And it's still something I do to this day when things break. It's amazing how another's insight can improve a project!

[xKrantzzy]

Great video with a great subject. Keep it up!

[mezzer]

The venn diagram of people who refuse to try ST, and who refuse to use Open source is a perfect circle. Just saying.

[Bluecoldcaffe]

My personal experience from the packaging machine world is that there is just a lot of secrecy. The portfolio shown on the fancy company website is just a small part of the entire solution offered on any given project. On a given project, we would come up with our best solution, and we'd have just some vague ideas on what our competitors would be offering. This leads to secretive behavior, and a somewhat tense atmosphere on the Interpack. This mindset tends to naturally spread throughout the company, especially to the software side of things.

[yassinebouchoucha]

fortunately I quit mechatronic and industrial automation (I never worked in though), I learned web development by open-source and open-minded developer, I have my own start-up now with high-grade Saas product and I am moving to other project even more complex... I would never expect such career in the mechatronic world !

[avejst]

Good points
Totally agree with your points
Thanks for sharing 🙂

[niclash]

One of the brightest Java developer I have ever worked with said basically the same thing as the "elephant in the room", when I asked him to open source a platform. "NO. It is horribly written." and it ended up with us re-designing the basic idea and re-implementing the design more than once.