Software Liability Debate

Could a programmer be held liable for any bad outcomes?

Completely agree. While I like the idea that we all share some responsibility about the decisions we make, and I applaud you for yours, it shouldn't be on the implementor to fix. The companies/heads demanding this should be the ones liable, and heavily so.To make a crude and polarizing comparison, especially since I happen to land somewhat on the other side of that argument:You can't blame a tool (bat/knife/gun) for what its agent does with it. If one tool doesn&#x

Wouldn't that entail that the developers also took on responsibilities for future consquences of the use of their software?

Why not hold the people accountable that deployed the tool? Ultimately the tool helps a human do the job. It doesn't do anything on its own. If a contractor shows up to do repairs in your house, but their hammer is faulty and the head flies through your window you don't talk to the hammer manufacturer. You talk to the contractor. It's the contractor's job to deal with wherever they got the hammer from.If software developers are held responsible for the software then

In every other field people are reasonably held responsible for their failures.As a service tech if I fill a car with tomato sauce instead of oil I pay for the car.As a programmer I can sell all the users data, leak it to hacks, then laugh all the way to the bank.As a furniture salesman I can requirements on materials transparency. If I break those I'm liable.As a programmer I can totally change the rules of my application at any time.If society wants to trust tech it will ha

I prefer liability when devs misuse software with consequences for society infrastructure.

But since those products were made by developers and tech savvy people, wouldn't it be their fault for releasing a product capable of doing that? It's literally their jobs to do so. Just as doctors and lawyers don't just assume patients/clients will know everything about their fields, why should we?

In other terms:There's 3 ways to assign blame, to the maker of the tool, to the user of the tool, and to the target of the tool.I think we can all agree that if the tool isn't designed to cause trouble we shouldn't blame the maker. I think blaming the target really depends on the situation - for example, when HP themselves decided to make ink cartridges use a chip and didn't sufficiently isolate the chip causing a security vulnerability, that's on HP. If the manufa

> Including microwaves or refrigerators?Yes.> What about game consoles?Absolutely.> What about the emissions control systems in our automobiles where bad code causes cancer?That too.Whoever wrote the software must take responsibility for the impact it causes on society. If the car manufacturer's code is defective and causing excessive emissions, the car company will be held accountable for that. Same reasoning can be applied to others. If the user replaced the com

Make software companies liable if it's their bugs that lead to a compromise.