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For consumer products like coffee machines and light bulbs there are consumer protection laws, electronic device safety certifications, product review sites, br

For consumer products like coffee machines and light bulbs there are consumer protection laws, electronic device safety certifications, product review sites, brand reputation and word of mouth recommendations. It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things. (Consider also that many of these products are designed and produced in other countries, so we need to figure out how to force all those other countries to enforce the certifications that we demand). I’ve not heard of a traffic light failure due to the control system mining Bitcoin, and any software engineer who did that or allowed it to happen would find their career over pretty quickly.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity, hundreds on innocent people have gone to jail because of software failure that was kept secret. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses-knew-about-Post-Office-Horizon-IT-flaws-says-insider https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses... "It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things" 1 simple law: for every product, place all firmware source-code in escrow, inspectable by police, MI6 and Courts in case of major hacks, breakdowns, and lawsuits.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  > I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. Not vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms. Completely different products and a completely different discussion. And besides, the staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified and certainly subject to liability insurance and contractual requirements specified by the client – which is exactly what the original article is calling for. > 1 simple law It's not simple at all, to completely rewrite every IP law and technology business convention in every country in the world :) And that's not what the article is calling for. It's just saying software developers should be qualified and insured.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. " 'vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms' are actually worse than most consumer products I had to deal with. The entire industry being infantile and irresponsible in every area it touches, from coffee machines to ATMs running windows XP and vulnerable oil pipelines. "staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified" Traders were qualified in 2008, the crash still happened. You are missing the point. The system encourages risk and staggering incompetence from leadership, untill the firms are held accountable and subject to real scrutiny, nothing will change. I know, first hand, a payment company which decided to switch from Perl to JS, and fired all Perl developers. Then they realised it's broken and they have no-one to fix it before JS system is ready. "It's not simple at all, to completely rewrite every IP law" You don't need to change IP law or anything else, you just need to equip justice system to inspect software and hold irresponsible gamblers accountable. If a Car company is accused of gross negligence, you can take a car apart and check what's going on, this is accomplishing the same for software, and to make sure it's not suddenly lost, deleted, etc. What is the "technology business convention" that we have to change? We already use version control. We do the same for plans of buildings and aircraft, they don't suddenly belong to the government.
    - tomhoward 5y ago
      The assertion in the article is that everyone selling software products and services should be qualified and insured. You seem to be arguing for things much more far-reaching than that, which you’re welcome to do, but I’m here to discuss the contents of the article, thanks.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity, hundreds on innocent people have gone to jail because of software failure that was kept secret. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses-knew-about-Post-Office-Horizon-IT-flaws-says-insider https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses... "It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things" 1 simple law: for every product, place all firmware source-code in escrow, inspectable by police, MI6 and Courts in case of major hacks, breakdowns, and lawsuits.

tomhoward 5y ago
> I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. Not vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms. Completely different products and a completely different discussion. And besides, the staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified and certainly subject to liability insurance and contractual requirements specified by the client – which is exactly what the original article is calling for. > 1 simple law It's not simple at all, to completely rewrite every IP law and technology business convention in every country in the world :) And that's not what the article is calling for. It's just saying software developers should be qualified and insured.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. " 'vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms' are actually worse than most consumer products I had to deal with. The entire industry being infantile and irresponsible in every area it touches, from coffee machines to ATMs running windows XP and vulnerable oil pipelines. "staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified" Traders were qualified in 2008, the crash still happened. You are missing the point. The system encourages risk and staggering incompetence from leadership, untill the firms are held accountable and subject to real scrutiny, nothing will change. I know, first hand, a payment company which decided to switch from Perl to JS, and fired all Perl developers. Then they realised it's broken and they have no-one to fix it before JS system is ready. "It's not simple at all, to completely rewrite every IP law" You don't need to change IP law or anything else, you just need to equip justice system to inspect software and hold irresponsible gamblers accountable. If a Car company is accused of gross negligence, you can take a car apart and check what's going on, this is accomplishing the same for software, and to make sure it's not suddenly lost, deleted, etc. What is the "technology business convention" that we have to change? We already use version control. We do the same for plans of buildings and aircraft, they don't suddenly belong to the government.
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    The assertion in the article is that everyone selling software products and services should be qualified and insured. You seem to be arguing for things much more far-reaching than that, which you’re welcome to do, but I’m here to discuss the contents of the article, thanks.