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13. We’re never going to get the broader SE culture to care about things like performance, compatibility, accessibility, security, or privacy, at least not with

by irq-1 5y ago

13. We’re never going to get the broader SE culture to care about things like performance, compatibility, accessibility, security, or privacy, at least not without legal regulations that are enforced. [3] And regulations are written in blood, so we’ll only get enforced legal regulations after a lack of accessibility kills people. [3] ...I think the killing has to be directly and obviously attributable to the software. Something that would cause a media sensation. Since we're talking uncomfortable truths: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. That was blamed on a bad UI/UX at the time, and nobody died, but there was never even talk of regulation. Credit Cards on the web got PCI DSS regulation because money, not because of people dying. Money has to be tied to "things like performance, compatibility, accessibility, security, or privacy" not lives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Sec... Also, the recent Boeing 737 Max scandal resulted in a payment but no regulation. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-conspiracy-and-agrees-pay-over-25-billion https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-...

onecommentman 5y ago
Money and focus to improve SE culture can come from just changing civil liability doctrines, instead of gov’t regulation. For example, guilty-until-proven-innocent (res ipsa loquitur) would make poor IT design and operations a lot more expensive, at the expense of a lot more court cases and a chilling effect on new software. For mature core operations, the price paid by society might be worth it. The IT industry would then be forced to come together and address issues at an industry level, if for no other reason than every player avoiding painful amounts of time and money spent in the civil justice system…which is a lot less fun than even the most torturous code reviews. My sense is (IANAL) that the liability doctrines for software are stuck in the 1960s with all software viewed as a “best effort” sort of experimental exercise that must be protected from the rigors of normal liability. I think we are past that point for a lot of software components. But who in the software industry dare acknowledge it?

by irq-1 5y ago

onecommentman 5y ago

Money and focus to improve SE culture can come from just changing civil liability doctrines, instead of gov’t regulation. For example, guilty-until-proven-innocent (res ipsa loquitur) would make poor IT design and operations a lot more expensive, at the expense of a lot more court cases and a chilling effect on new software. For mature core operations, the price paid by society might be worth it. The IT industry would then be forced to come together and address issues at an industry level, if for no other reason than every player avoiding painful amounts of time and money spent in the civil justice system…which is a lot less fun than even the most torturous code reviews. My sense is (IANAL) that the liability doctrines for software are stuck in the 1960s with all software viewed as a “best effort” sort of experimental exercise that must be protected from the rigors of normal liability. I think we are past that point for a lot of software components. But who in the software industry dare acknowledge it?