["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]
On 23 Apr 2005 09:01:48 -0700,
Winfield Hill -edu wrote
in Msg.

Naturally I disagree: Owners of hardware should be able to get the
service manuals for their purchased equipment. Some sellers want
to keep the repair profits for themselves, but in my opinion this
is unwise. OK, we'll leave that point.

When shopping for expensive lab equipment for my employer I've always made
the purchase dependent on the vendor's willingness to supply full
schematics. Not only for repair, but also for modifications that are
sometimes necessary for research use.

Some of our best STM data aquisition systems were purchased from a company
that was very hard-ass about releasing the schematics (a British company
named "WA", later aquired by Oxford Instruments). If it weren't for the
schematics that we forced them to turn over those systems would now be
useless. Ironically the company went out of business, whereas another one
in the same market that always ships equipment with full schematics
(Omicron) is still doing fine.

--Daniel