There's the benefit/detriment of scale to consider. One guy who contributes to a widely used piece of software stands to affect millions if not almost billions.

There's the benefit/detriment of scale to consider. One guy who contributes to a widely used piece of software stands to affect millions if not almost billions. How do you mediate the difference in impact and infinite liability on a single person? One method is to stop relying on only a single person, but we neither have the manpower to do so, nor would it mitigate the damage per person significantly. Software is also far more complex to inspect, with an explosion of execution paths for every line of code. We do need software engineering. But we simply cannot treat it like every other discipline. We need better techniques, we need formal methods. We're still in the dark ages, and every other discipline has sacrificed many to get where they are. But we're simply not there yet, despite the fact that we've protected many already thanks to the likes of Parnas and Boehme etc.