It's not really anything new, you can use the current Tier-1 visa for this purpose.

There's a Tier-1 entrepreneur visa which requires £200k investment, however most professional software developers will qualify for the Tier-1 general visa which doesn't require investment.

The general Tier-1 uses a points based system which takes into account education, english language fluency and past earnings. With the Tier-1 general visa you can stay in the UK for up-to 2 years (if you're not making money after 2 years and don't have investment, you might not be able to renew though)

I hope that happens, but I haven't noticed the US government being quick to imitate good ideas from other countries.

I wish, things here in the US are going very slow about visa. When humans have something important, and they lived with it since long time, they forget how bad is to live without it. You understand the importance of things only when you lose them. Silicon Valley might not be the Silicon Valley 50 years from now; the government has to do something clear and practical to avoid this kind of future. Now.