Vendor Lock-In By Any Other Name Is Tyranny
Tags: community, opensource, news
Published: 2024-04-27 01:06:59

Doublespeak is the norm. Perception is reality and disagreeing with this simple truth is seen as disorderly.

To say this is totalitarianism is an understatement. Join me as I attempt to do my best to arouse your inner skeptic by channeling the ancestral energy of the late great comedian George Carlin. I bring your attention to my favorite speech by Mr. Carlin:

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I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. 
Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. 
Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. 
Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet you if we had still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha. I’ll betcha. But.
But, it didn’t happen, and one of the reasons. One of the reasons is because we were using that soft language. That language that takes the life out of life. And it is a function of time. It does keep getting worse. I’ll give you another example… False teeth became dental appliances… The dump became the landfill. Car crashes became automobile accidents. Partly cloudy became partly sunny. Motels became motor lodges. 
House trailers became mobile homes… Now the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. And they’re broke! They’re broke! They don’t have a negative cash-flow position. They’re fucking broke! Cause a lot of them were fired. You know, fired. Management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area, so many people are no longer viable members of the workforce. Smug, greedy, well-fed people have invented a language to conceal their sins.


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To add another example of this malicious softening of language, “vendor lock-in” has replaced “tyranny” or “domination” or “control”. What exactly is meant when people say “vendor lock-in”? I’ll tell you. It specifically refers to a hardware and/or software technology/product/solution/service/platform intentionally designed to give you the customer absolute hell should you ever dare try to modify it as you wish, integrate it with any other technology/product/solution/service/platform of your choice in the manner you want, choosing which aspects of the technology/product/solution/service/platform you wish to implement & for how long, and/or (heaven forbid) you daring to ever leave the technology/product/solution/service/platform behind.

Let’s take it a step further. “But Enri” I can hear you saying, “If you or a company doesn’t like the technology/product/solution/service/platform, choose another! It’s free market capitalism after all, this is freedom land!”

Let’s explore this, shall we?

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## <u>**Illusion of Choice**</u>

Don’t like Inductive Automation’s Ignition? Choose Siemens’ WinCC. Don’t like Rockwell’s FactoryTalk? Choose Schneider’s Wonderware. Don’t like GE’s iFIX? Choose ABB’s System 800xA. Don’t like Emerson’s DeltaV? Choose Honeywell’s Experion.

And on the list goes for technology/product/solution/service/platform that cannot be modified as you wish when you want by whomever you want, cannot be left behind whenever you want, do not allow you to easily choose which modules to implement whenever & however you wish to implement them, and most importantly — do not care & are not affected by any consequences you face when experiencing these hardships.

At what point can you call an integrator ‘independent’? Is it when they as an individual business entity simply refuse to accept financial compensation from a vendor, only to then have to shill the exact same technology/product/solution/service/platform because those are the only options available?

Is an integrator declared ‘independent’ when they close up shop altogether because they’re sick & tired of literally all manufacturing clientele refusing to do business with anyone that doesn’t shill the aforementioned commercial technology/product/solution/service/platforms?

Is an integrator declared ‘independent’ when they are forced to shill one of the aforementioned technology/product/solution/service/platforms because it’s the only way to get any clientele & to help the integrator feel better about themselves, they soothe their psyche by telling their clientele “Don’t worry, at least in the MES layer, we have some open source options, so that’s cool!”.

How free & independent are integrators if the only choice they have is the illusion of one? How can anyone sit there with a straight face & declare themselves an independent integrator when the only SCADA options they have are all proprietary, commercial closed-source technology/product/solution/service/platforms that require significant up-front $$$$$ for the integrator to develop proof of concepts with, for the customer to only be allowed to purchase it through select good-old boys clubs, for prices to not be openly disclosed, and for modification to be impossible?

Let us also not forget the extreme cult of personality all of these commercial technology/product/solution/service/platforms have behind them propping up their popularity, thus providing “social proof”. This “social proof” allows for easy manipulation of unsuspecting customers who truly are expecting to be able to modify as they wish by whomever they want whenever they want to, sunset it without losing the years of hard-work behind proprietary closed-source doors, and implement it in whichever manner pleases them.

This is not freedom, this is not choice, this is not free markets operating at their best in the interest of customers, this is not “vendor lock-in”. This is tyranny, domination, and a major power imbalance. Just because one

“Oh but Ignition is one of the good ones! They’re not like the big guys! They at least flip you off to your face & then give you a cookie afterwards, so that makes it OK!” If that helps you sleep better at night, sure, go for it.

The ONLY way forward is through open source hardware and software projects. Even here, it’s not enough just to separate the financier from the project — we must fiercely stand up as activists to call for large scale funding for such initiatives. We do this already in healthcare and we do it very well. Open source is NOT a new concept. Clinical trials release drug fabrication research publicly so that vendors can begin using economies of scale to make mass manufacturing them cost effective without having had to invest in the intricate multifaceted research discovering the breakthrough in the first place.

To expect manufacturers, especially small businesses, to have to do both the R&D for new products & the R&D for the software & hardware to achieve the former, is nothing short of cruel punishment. How revolting for someone to say “support small businesses” while simultaneously not supporting large scale infrastructure investments into open source projects.

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## <u>**"Do More With Less"**</u>

How dare you tell manufacturers to “do more with less” when it literally means you are expecting them to compete — and succeed while doing so — with much bigger opponents that have virtually bottomless pockets thanks to institutional investors and leverage significant political influence to obtain sweetheart deals on the software/hardware required to do business. Open source software & hardware level the playing field, even if by a little, just like public infrastructure bills help do when they fund medical research & public utilities construction/upgrades.

Folks, the real story here isn’t whether PI or Influx or Wonderware or Ignition is better. It’s not about which technology/product/solution/service/platform/company is innovating on some newfound discovery. The crux of the matter is whether the discovery & the means utilized to get there will be open sourced or not.

The industrial revolution was not accelerated by the advent of TCP/IP. The protocol wars had nothing to do with technological capabilities & limitations. It had everything to do with the fact that TCP/IP was open source and SNA by IBM was not.

Thanks again for your time and consideration. You could have been doing anything else in the world right now but instead you chose to review my work & for that I am forever grateful, even if we may disagree. Stay tuned and I’ll see you in the next one.


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DISCLAIMER: I am not sponsored or influenced in any way, shape, or form by the companies and products mentioned. This is my own original content, with image credits given as appropriate and necessary.