[mjolk]

>I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour.

No, it's our responsibility as decent people. I don't need to sign some online pledge to keep myself from pushing people in front of trains. If I was the sort to harm others, why would I care about some meaningless online campaign?

[AYBABTME]

An engineer holds a license such that they can profess, which license is conditional to the respect of their code of ethics (and a bunch of rules). If they do not follow those conditions, their license can be revoked.

So what if they lose their license? They can still write code and do harm.

Yes, indeed. As it stands right now, the reality of the engineer's license is such that it doesn't fit very well the software world. The vast majority of companies couldn't give less of a damn whether you are licensed or not. However, it depends.

Regulations might eventually come in place to force software producers to hire only licensed engineers if the nature of their business is prone to put the public in danger. And as technology grows ever deeper into our lives, the danger that consumer apps can cause on the public is ever growing as well. For instance, breaching a user's privacy can be enough info to grant an ill-intended operator access to the user's e-mail through social engineering, from which it is then often trivial to gain access to that user's bank informations. You don't need that much imagination to figure out a scenario where a user's life can be turned to shit by some software abuse.

Given that this risk is ever growing, the possibility of a code of ethic on software business is plausible. Say in X months, the government of country Y decides that companies hoping to run a social network available on their territories must hire licensed software-engineers, and have them all sign-off any code that is presented to the public. That software engineer they'd hire would have to put their license and career in jeopardy if they were to implement some evil feature.

Before Québec's bridge, engineers didn't need a license to build infrastructure. The parallel between the current situation and the past isn't too hard to make.

[freshhawk]

"No, it's our responsibility as decent people"

Well, yes. But there is a reason that every profession that has tackled this problem has used a system of oaths and certification. Engineers, Doctors and Lawyers are the canonical examples.

You need something that is given and can be taken away for bad behaviour in order to change behaviour at this level. Damn human brains.

[pekk]

Taken away by whom and on what basis? I would dispute that you need the ability to take away other individuals' ability to lawfully write software. That ability is bound to be abused for political reasons (which is also what it looks like when people have reasonably different ethical systems and one imposes his by force).

Anyway, the issue at hand is bad corporate behavior, not bad programmers. I don't see why we need to start licking our chops about the prospect of forming a blacklist against individual programmers.

[freshhawk]

This is just a bonding/licensing arrangement, it's in use by every other profession that has this exact problem.

So go ahead and try and stop bad corporate behaviour, everyone else can use a proven system so that programmers can easily say "no" when asked to do something unethical and not be fired for it.

I'm often confused by how often programmers completely reinvent the wheel when faced with social problems. The idea of looking to other similar industries never comes up, even if the problem is exactly the same.

[darxius]

There's nothing to sign and it's not a campaign. You're right, it is our responsibility as decent people to uphold a certain level of moral and ethical behaviour, especially when the software we write is in control of sensitive information.

The Oath is there to remind you to act in the best interest of the user. There are no formalities and although it seems common sense to people like you and me, others might not see it so clearly.

[tripzilch]

> I don't need to sign some online pledge to keep myself from pushing people in front of trains.

Neither do doctors really need the Oath of Hippocrates to stop themselves from harming people.

[mpyne]

Which is convenient, because the Oath of Hippocrates has not actually stopped doctors from harming people.