Very strange worldview you have there, where engineers are somehow the conscience of the world, holding back greedy managers from breaking the law. Assessing whether a feature is legal isn't something an engineer can or should do.
Very strange worldview you have there, where engineers are somehow the conscience of the world, holding back greedy managers from breaking the law. Assessing whether a feature is legal isn't something an engineer can or should do.
You're arguing for diffusion of responsibility, and we've seen it leading to outcomes that screw the whole society.
Engineers, as everyone involved, should definitely assess whether what they're doing is legal or even ethical. Not everyone has a choice, or the luxury to stand for their principles, but that's a matter of means, there needs to be a will in the first place.
Absolutely. I'm not sure where this idea comes from, that engineers should be compliant, neutral "implementers" who should just turn off their conscience and implement whatever pops up on their JIRA list without any kind of assessment or objections on ethical or legal grounds. That's not what people in a serious profession do. It's also so weird to hear this idea from engineers themselves! Like, are you really advocating to remove your own agency over your work??
The role of legal oversight is elsewhere. Engineers are not equipped with the knowledge.
Obvious ethical issues are are different, like crimes against humanity level. Other than that, it's none of their business. There are institutions for that.
Hmm, engineers are expected to know what is legal and not.
That's called lawyer. It's a special skill, not just intuition.
Ignorance is not a defense against getting arrested. Everyone with a drivers license is expected to know all traffic laws, even brand new ones. You’re expected to know all forms of theft and violence. And then you and I are absolutely expected to understand the basics of copyright and IP laws.
Lawyering is about being able to argue case law and keeping confidences. That’s how you lose your license, is doing those two things poorly.
Nope, you need to learn what an engineer is, not somebody who calls themself an engineer.
Would you say the same about any other engineering discipline? Those with actual qualification standards?
Most engineers are required to explicitly take responsibility for the things they sign off, up to and including prison for sufficiently bad cases. Software “engineering” is the exception.
Yes, because it's not real engineering. The field is too variable and fast paced to be like civil engineering etc. Those have well defined codes because it is physics constrained. Each construction must be done separately at high cost. Software doesn't work like this. So there is much more flexibility and change and there's no stable best practice to regulate.
Information theory is its own sort of physics but that’s not the part that needs to be regulated. Psychologists are also licensed. That we still aren’t is a mystery to me at this point. Our stuff is now critical infrastructure. Not everyone works on that sort of things but enough of us do that at least part of the trade should be licensed.