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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That may be just a fig-leaf to plaster over 'we couldn't do it'. It's one thing to release software, it's quite another thing to release this software and have it tested, audited and certified safe and that's definitely part of the process of delivering software that is critical to the well being of the users and the other people you're sharing the road with.

And that second part is part-and-parcel of wanting to operate in this space.

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Exactly what I think -- here's the "deus ex machina" that he needed to wash his hands of the whole thing, after having talked himself into a corner where the only other way out was to deliver a real, working, product. The letter the government sent was simply asking for more information and a temporary pause in sales; not any permanent injunction at all. It reads like they know he's kind of a hothead but they're doing their best to convince him that this is in everyone's best interest.

An ex-colleague of mine used to say the difference between a software engineer and a real engineer is that the latter's signature is criminally binding.

We can refuse to be real engineers (it is a great responsibility), but then we should drop the title.

I'm 100% in agreement with that. Engineers carry responsibility for their work (and do so with pride).

We never had the PE title.

In any case, a software engineer still has legal liability. Maybe someone who works on mission-critical systems can comment more specifically here. Maybe it's contract based vs standardized.

I agree. Prototypes are easy, production level products/systems are hard and take time and money. There is also another angle of just hoping to sell the prototype and "team" and let someone else do the hard work of making it real.

And he would have needed to have performed the development under an appropriately rigorous development process.

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