3 ms·
>> Consider issues of physical disabilities, allocation of resources, economic disadvantage and other factors that can diminish access to the benefits of softwa
by phahbeya 9y ago
>> Consider issues of physical disabilities, allocation of resources, economic disadvantage and other factors that can diminish access to the benefits of software.
>Seems like some economic SJW stuff, and would you break your oath if you didn't add blind accessibility to your GUI?
If you forgot about maybe ensuring blind accessibility, then you goofed. If you were informed of this issue, and refused to seriously consider the matter, then you broke the code of conduct. If you seriously consider the matter, and decide not to implement blind accessibility after estimating the cost/time for doing so, then you are in agreement with the code.
>> diminish quality of life, diminish privacy or harm the environment.
> Could you work at a targeted advertising company or at resource extraction (eg mining)?
Environmental: I would guess the typical example of unethical software engineering is the big VW diesel scandal. As far as I understood, the Bosch engineers who wrote the offending code clearly documented that it is for debug purposes only, and use in production would be unethical and probably illegal. Were these engineers in breach of the code-of-conduct? In my view this depends on whether there is a good debug justification for the code; if not, then they acted unethically by even writing it and should have refused. The code-of-conduct requires them to think about whether such a feature is justified for debug purposes.
Did the VW people who put this into production break the code-of-conduct? Absolutely.
>> 3.03. Identify, define and address ethical, economic, cultural, legal and environmental issues related to work projects.
>This seems way outside the scope of a developer, especially if we are speaking of technical and deep fields like health care or finance.
I think that the code-of-conduct just requires that you carefully think about these matters, and accept that your personal ethical responsibility cannot be discharged by "my boss/customer told me to do this".