Licensing computer engineer and scientist - I was wondering when this idea would surface. I mean, that is a great way to strengthen monopolies and consolidate e

Licensing computer engineer and scientist - I was wondering when this idea would surface. I mean, that is a great way to strengthen monopolies and consolidate existing players. I didn't expect such a suggestion would come from a Freebsd core developer. Licensing is about compliance. It helps better control who has access to a certain set of skills, and who can make a living off such skills. License could require you to be certified for certain technologies, which mean whoever has the best lobbying power win (Hint, it's not Freebsd). It's a great way to keep market shares for specific interests. Not sure how this is good for the industry. Licensing means you can put barriers to entry for specific demographics (ineligible if born in a specific country...) Licensing means you can create an entire business model just around licensing fees and licensing bodies, which usually mean some people are left off the game. You want to increase professional liability and overall responsibility, they are other ways. First, you have certifications. They already exist and can give ad-hoc solutions for some specific niches, and is the closest that we have to a license today. You can create a mechanism for someone to lose their certification if they commit a professional fault (even if this would totally be used in some case for internal politics and pressuring people in doing they don't want, irrelevant of any actual professional issues). Second, you have transparency. Company can publish internal explanations of any disaster and if people are terminated because of it, they can make this public. Not that I like the idea... but it is a middle ground - where others are given an opportunity to decide if they to take the risk hire people with public failures, while not removing someone from exercising one's profession because some project went to hell and someone made mistakes. Anyway, overall, I get his point that he want more responsible engineers on the job, but gatekeeping an industry with licensing sounds like a recipe for an even worse shit show.