The reoccurring discussions regarding the policy on requiring OPC Foundation membership before access the OPC specifications has surfaced again on the forums.  I’ve already posted my personal thoughts on things on the OPC Exchange blog so I won’t rehash them here and Tom has blogged on this topic as well.   As a quick recap, the OPC specifications used to be freely available.   Based on feedback from end users on the quality of some OPC products and interoperability problems they had encountered it was deemed something had to change.  In order to have better tracking of who was developing OPC products, and ensure they had access to the right development and testing tools, the specifications are now only available to Foundation members.   Based on responses on the forums and other sites, obviously not everyone agrees with this.   Tom always says that if we are doing something, it should be the right thing.  Are the views of the few on the forums representative of the many?

As Randy pointed out on the forum “OPC is a member driven organization and if members believe that the specs should be made available for free then these members need to make their feelings known”.  Here’s a way to do that. Post a comment that answers these questions:

•  Are you an OPC member?
•  Does ‘pay-to-play’ mean better quality products? (i.e. member products are built on reference code, interoperability tested and certified.)
• Do you agree with the current policy of ‘pay-to-view’?
• Why/Why not?

I know there are a lot of committed OPC members out there, and I know everyone agrees with the need to raise the bar on quality and interoperability.  So let’s hear from you.