If the 'established industry standards' were real, they would hold up in court. Software has no established industry standards. This has been an issue in many

If the 'established industry standards' were real, they would hold up in court. Software has no established industry standards. This has been an issue in many court cases. There are many "standards" but none of them are official which results in any claims of negligence when it comes to software, no matter how egregious the behavior was, failing. We saw this with the Toyota 'unintended acceleration' scandal. The court acknowledged that out of 90+ automotive industry 'recommended' and 'suggested' coding practices, Toyota's code only followed 4. They acknowledged that Toyota let software engineers play no role in deciding scheduling. They acknowledged that Toyota software engineers did not have static analysis and other tools, or even a bug tracker. But, the court had to find them not guilty of criminal negligence because there simply aren't any legal standards or regulations which they could be said to be negligent of. If you were building a bridge and you hired unqualified engineers, deprived them of tools they needed, ignored them when it came time to determine scheduling, didn't follow established regulations and standards, etc, the companies executives would be prosecuted for criminal negligence and be sent to prison. If software is involved, however, the situation couldn't be more different. It's an issue that has been debated for well over a decade in the ACM at least. Companies don't want to have to pay more for talent, and most software engineers don't want to raise the barrier to entry. The real danger is that if the software industry waits too long to establish some way of handling these issues, some public tragedy will inspire a kneejerk government response that results in a suffocating set of standards that makes everyone unhappy.