I think we all understand the NFPA is a government mandated monopoly that makes it's money by printing books every 3 years. There was a court decision that made them put the NEC on their web site for free but that doesn't mean it is easy to use there or that you can copy it. I agree that as soon as something is adopted as public law it should be freely available but that is not the case with any NFPA standard and the NRTLs are even worse than that.
It is a huge money grab by people who print these books. It is also why we have so much code "churn" in the name of safety. NFPA should have their codes on a 10 year cycle but they wouldn't make nearly as much money.
It is really stupid that they close the ROP before most AHJs have even adopted the last version. Because of legislative inertia and the timing of Florida codes vs NFPA, Florida is always at least one cycle behind, most of the time 2. We are writing new code before anyone has any experience with the current one. It is also worrisome about how many manufacturers sit on the CMPs, pimping their latest research project to be in the code. There is no better example than Cuttler Hammer and the AFCI. They had that rammed into the 1999 code (to be implemented 3 years later) before they even had a working model. I got that straight from Harvey Johnson who was on the development team. Square D was forced to rush a device into the field that didn't work and had to be recalled, I bet half were never replaced. That device was literally beta tested in the customer's home at the point of a government gun.
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