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What if an engineer designs a lock and someone picks it? What if an engineer designs a bridge that someone later destroys by finding a weak point and placing ex

• ryandrake 3y ago
  Root cause analysis with findings made public. What exactly was signed off, in what context, what was the failure and was it a design defect? If it was a design defect, what action could have prevented it? Did the engineer sign off that the action was conducted? Was the defect known at the time of shipping? I personally don't think it's fair to hold people accountable to unknown defects, as long as corrective action happens when they become known. You could limit accountability to known defects and still find lots of serious problems. We all know that our companies ship software with known defects all the time! I like how it works in aviation: Any time something happens, the NTSB swoops in and does a report and publishes their findings so everyone can learn from them. They list primary and contributing causes. If negligence or violations of FAR are found, then the FAA may start down the path of certificate suspension/revocation. Software is not as serious or deadly as aviation, so you wouldn't take it that far, but I'd say it's directionally where we should be going. Baby steps...