Seems to me, that this thread consists of 2 viewpoints:
1. Customer Centric: The customer should have access to the source, so that modifications are straight forward if a piece of equipment fails or is upgraded, the original company goes out of business, or loses the source themselves! (Yes, it was a CI in this forum that posted about this occuring.)
2. Installer Centric: The user only has a license to use the software. If they need an upgrade, equipment change, etc, they need to go back to that source. The thinking being that giving the customer the source code, means that other CI firms could profit from the original CI's code being used on other jobs.
Seems to me, that no educated consumer is going to pick #2. They either are not thinking about what can happen (source code lost in a fire at the CI's house, etc), or they are not aware this is an issue in the first place.
The only real argument the CI's have as to why not to give out the code, involves the fact that they may use modules, which are developed by them, and therefore their property.
Solution:
Grant owners a license for the code, with the ability to change and recompile, as long as no module is used at any other physical address. The owner would be supplied a disk at the time the system is completed, and signed off as complete, and payment in full is received by the installer.
Some CI's may believe this still does not protect them. They argue that other firms may copy the work anyway. This is a possibility. I would suggest having customers sign a document, that states they are responsible for ensuring the code is not used at other addresses, and that any breach of this duty, shall be compensated for by paying $ "insert amount here" as liquidated damages. I suggest installers then sprinkle traceable customer unique values in the modules in various locations, so identifying the source of a code infringement becomes fairly easy.
Note that my experience with software, and some discussions I've had with lawyers in this area, have brough up the following points.
1. Copyright for a work is generally considered as owned by the author. This is subject to a case of a "work made for hire". Here the person for whom the work was made is deemed to be the author unless there is a written agreement to the contrary. (So those CI's who feel they own the work, and have not supplied a license for the software, well... you just gave away your rights.)
2. If you value the code as your work product, take ownership. Put copyright statements in the source, and probably one should be viewable in the completed system if at all practical. Not doing so may impair your ability to enforce copyright.
3. Maintain a complete list of licenses. Failing to do so in a complete and consistent manner, impunes your credibility with a court, and may hurt your ability to enforce copyright.
4. Not granting a license with clear terms, may violate "Fair Use" copyright stipulations. For example, one might argue in court that after paying $50,000 to automate a home, that it is reasonable to expect that when they wish to replace a DVD player, that another CI firm not have to start "from the gound up", and redevelop all code. Not granting clear terms would invoke fair use.
There are many more, as I am not a legal expert in copyright. It is clear that after reading most of the responses in this forum, that most of the CI's who feel they "own" the code supplied to customers, have not taken the steps to protect that code. They are relying on the ability to keep the code a secret.
This brings me to an important idea:
How often do you run into a situation where the source is not available, and changes to the code are therfore not possible?
How much would customers typically pay, to have this remedied?
I'm pretty good at hacking security systems... :-)
