"Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc?" This. This is the most important point I've read so far. The key word here is "imagine." I

"Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc?" This. This is the most important point I've read so far. The key word here is "imagine." I think even we, as an industry, don't quite grok the degree to which software truly has eaten the world -- and the degree to which it now is every bit as important, as life-or-death, as things like cars, airplane travel, or even medicine. We hold these goods to certain standards because we deem them extremely critical -- too important to be left to the de facto standards set by the operation of a wild-west market. It's about time the notion of standards-free software shocked people as much as the notion of standards-free engineering in any other systemically critical industry. I'd prefer self-established standards set by the industry to government-imposed standards set by lay bureaucrats. But the latter is coming eventually if the former never does.