[lodovic]

That would put full blame on the tech staff and let the C-suite get away. The success of a software product is measured by sales and user base, so the more successful their sales and marketing are, the higher the damages will be for the tech staff.

I am of the opinion that companies and their management should be personally liable for damages caused by bad software, not their employees. They created the structure, hired everyone (and perhaps didn't hire QA), and invested in it to make a huge profit.

[pdpi]

I would argue the outcome of setting up a perverse incentive structure and failing to hire QA is pretty damn predictable, so that's entirely consistent with what I said :)

On a more serious note, I'm not saying "just make programmers liable for the code they write", and leave it at that. I'm saying that, when you sell a piece of software, someone needs to sign-off on that software being fit for purpose. It's that someone who's ultimately liable. Absent some explicit firebreak, that sign-off implicitly happens with the CTO or CEO.