I suspect a lot of this info (how the machines which power industrial automation are designed and built) is proprietary and closely guarded knowledge. Software

I suspect a lot of this info (how the machines which power industrial automation are designed and built) is proprietary and closely guarded knowledge. Software is kind of special in that everyone can relatively easily replicate everybody else's software (mostly because the trial and error cycle is short, so whatever secret sauce there is can be just figured out in finite time), while processes involving physical things are often based on knowledge accumulated over decades or centuries that a noob could never replicate for free in their basement.