Professional licensing - Was: Is there anything we can do as a group about SCO ?

[Vaughn Treude]

Wow, looks like I"ve started a flame war!! :-)

I took the EIT test myself in 1980, with some trepidation, as I was already a 
libertarian back then.  I expressed my concerns to a professor, who got a bit 
angry and said, "You don't want a bunch of interlopers coming in to the 
profession!"

I'm in the IEEE and several (but by no means all) of the members of our group 
have PE certification.  I'm not against it if it's a voluntary thing, 
something you do to get a "PE" after your name.  Here in Arizona it's pretty 
much that way, but in other states - noticeably California - it's pretty 
difficult to practice at all without it.

Furthermore, unlike a lot of the messagers in this thread, I'm all for 
voluntary free-enterprise certifications.  Never had the time or necessity to 
get one myself, but I'm glad it's out there.

Medical, avionics, and other life-critical applications are a sticky wicket, 
but I'd say the important thing there is certifying the process, not the 
designers.  Even the best developers can produce crap if there's no good 
process in place.  And no, I don't think the government should regulate even 
that directly.  Free market organizations like Underwriters Laboratories do a 
better job.   In that case, if you don't get your device certified, and it 
fails and kills people (as an X-ray machine did a while back) you get your 
tush sued off.

And finally - if it's not about control, why have governments taken the 
liberty of denying and suspending professional licenses for a whole host of 
non-professional-related reasons?  If you have a dispute with your ex-spouse 
about child support payments, you don't get due process of law.  You have to 
pay up of the state yanks your license (making it even harder to fulfill your 
obligations!)  Same goes for traffic tickets and other disputes with the 
authorities.

The scariest thing of all is that "political correctness" is becoming a 
necessity for profoessional licensing.  You may have heard of the Illinois 
nutcase a few years back who went on a rampage, killing minorities at random. 
 The guy had gone to school to be a paralegal, and the state had denied him a 
license to practiced because of his "white supremacist" views.  Being denied 
the opportunity of working "within the system"  may have been part of what 
made the guy snap. 

Oops, and I almost forgot another argument.  Licensing won't stop the export 
of jobs, because India will just put it's own licensing program in place, and 
we'll probably be required to recognize their credentials under the WTO.  Or 
maybe we'll do a bilateral agreement if the Feds want to piss off Pakistan 
for some reason. 

Just my dollar-and-two cents
Vaughn Treude

P.S.  Please don't take any of this  personal - I love to argue politics!  :-)

On Friday 23 May 2003 11:17, you wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 08:40, Vaughn Treude wrote:
> > Another seldom-recognized threat is the movement to
> > "license" software engineers.  Occupational licensing is always the first
> > step to bringing a profession under government control (note that most
> > dictatorships license journalists.)  I can imagine programs containing
> > code written by students, amateurs, and refuseniks such as myself
> > becoming illegal to distribute under the guise of "consumer protection." 
> >  And I do recall seeing an article on the Microsoft web site bemoaning
> > the lack of standards for software professionals . . .
>
> I would have to disagree with you here.  Licensing of software
> developers will provide some quality in the industry.  And is rarely
> about government control.  I would also argue that it would probably
> help free software in a round about way.
>
> Remember, that almost all 'engineers' are licensed through the state.
> And, in some states it is actually illegal to call yourself and engineer
> without a license.  Here is the organization for AZ:
>
> http://www.btr.state.az.us/
>
> To start off, I should say that I am officially an 'Engineer in
> Training' and have the option to get licensed in a couple years - so
> perhaps, I'm a bit bias.
>
> Licensing of engineers provides alot of things to the public at large,
> because in reality an engineer needs to have a level of trust with the
> public.  You need to have faith that some hacker didn't build the bridge
> your driving on or the building your in.  You want someone with
> certifiable credentials certifying those projects.
>
> But yet, the pacemaker that you get doesn't have any requirements on the
> software developers.  Heck, the thing could run on WinCE and if it
> failed, all the people working on it would be protected by the corporate
> shell.  Licensed engineers don't have this luxury.  They are legally
> responsible for projects they sign off on, and for protection of the
> public.
>
> Now, does this mean that all software production will be illegal without
> a licensed software engineer?  Unlikely.  Just like it is not illegal to
> build a bridge in your backyard without a licensed engineer.  I don't
> know what your insurance company would think about it, but that's
> different.  But what will likely happen is that 'critical' software
> buyers (medial, defense, nuclear power plants, etc.) would make a
> sign-off from a licensed software engineer a requirement.
>
> Does this kill free software in those fields?  No, not really.  It
> provides more of a market for companies like RedHat.  Remember that the
> engineer building the bridge doesn't have to do all the work, he just
> has to be aware of all of it and certify it.  The same would go for
> RedHat hiring licensed engineers that will certify the packages in the
> new 'RedHat medical edition'.
>
> Lastly, another offshoot of licensure would be keeping more jobs in the
> United States.  Because the licenses are managed by the states it is
> nearly impossible for someone overseas to become a licensed engineer in
> the states.
>
> So, I guess I'm really for licensing of software developers.  I think
> that it will hopefully add quality to an industry that is becoming more
> critical to our everyday lives and is starting to affect public safety.
>
> 		--Ted

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