[erelong]

It's mostly the problem of required regulations, so no we don't want mandatory gatekeeeping on surgeons as this is for example leading to doctor shortages

It's fine to set up voluntary standards and choose surgeons you think live up to those

So we want to enable more people to be able to create for example pacemakers because of things like Linus's law, "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". If we exclude "non-professionals" from the process of creating "professional" products, we tend to have less participation in the process of innovation and therefore get less innovation

[Orygin]

But there is already mandatory gatekeeping of surgeons? They went to medical school for so many years, and they are liable to malpractice if they don't do their job correctly. Engineering is the same. They sign building plans with their names and may be liable for damages caused by gross negligence.

Why shouldn't any self taught "software engineer" be liable for damages they caused due to negligence? If we had to sign off builds of critical components (like a pacemaker to stay with the analogy), there would be way more pushback against malpractice in the development process. Of course not all software projects require that level of rigor, but for medical stuff and I'm sure a lot of other fields, it should be mandatory to have at least one qualified engineer that is ultimately responsible.