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So anyway, I'm radicalized, rule
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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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This is why:
The FTC needs to do its job and start outlawing all these obscene subscription business models for things that are rightfully products, not services. Where's my goddamned First Sale Doctrine, FTC?!
Software Engineers working on commercial products need to be professionally licensed, so that proper consequences can be applied for unethical "fail-deadly" designs like this one.
As a software engineer, the thought of my code being responsible for someone's safety is fucking terrifying. Thankfully I'm not in that kind of position.
From experience though, I can tell you that most of the reasons software is shitty is because of middle or upper management, either forcing idiotic business requirements (like a subscription where it doesn't fucking belong!) or just not allocating time to button things up. I can guarantee that every engineer that worked on that thing hated it and thought it was fucking stupid.
Licensing would be overkill for most software as it's not usually life and death. I think in this case since it's safety equipment it really should have been rejected by NHTSA before it ever hit stores.
As a software engineer who was also a civil engineer-in-training before switching careers, I think one of the big overlooked benefits of being licensed is that it would give engineers leverage to push back on unethical demands by management.
manager@evil.corp
Dear manager please clarify the specifications for product. From the discussions in the last design meeting i felt the specifications to potentially be ambigious about their compliance with critical safety regulation. Please reply with the clarified specifications.
Management can always just fire the engineering team and hire one overseas. It's not like it's even that difficult to do.
I don't think you understand what being licensed means. It means the state requires that people doing that job hold a license. Offshoring would become illegal.
This is managements fault, not the engineers fault.
We have to implement the requirements we are given. If we don’t, we get fired and they hire someone else who will do it.
If we were licensed, any replacement would be similarly ethically bound to refuse and that tactic wouldn't work.
who's doing the licensing and do they share my ethics?