First I thought of all the things that warrant and don't warrant jail time, the financial crimes, the inappropriate loaning practices, the breaking of NDAs, the intentional lock in that some software systems put in place, the theft of code by John Carmack, the lack of security measures to protect user data of most companies, the inappropriate use of open source work without respecting the license terms, etc. If these don't warrant jail time, why this?

Then I just wondered about the inherent act. Let's say it was unethical. It still feels harsh to me to give it jail time. You say great damage, but I see it more as lesser benefits. Clearly, the excel sheets actually saved the company money over many years, otherwise they would just have gone back to doing it manually or paid for some other system. This is even including the time bomb. So overall it feels like Siemens was still content and happy with the whole thing. There was no act of say infecting other systems or stealing data, or ramsoning, etc.

Then I wondered about the precedent this can set. Could I be liable for jail time for a bug I mistakenly introduced, what if a company with good lawyers made a case it was introduced on purpose as a time bomb? Maybe I made a variable an int instead of a long one day and it overflows and I get sent to jail for it? Do I have to worry about that now? Any limits I put in a system could be seen as a time bomb and cause me to go to jail.

Finally I thought about the idea of shelf life. I hire a home contractor and they cheap out on the number of nails and material used? Doubt they go to jail for that, even though it was intentional. What about appliance manufacturer building appliances they know won't last very long? What about products that can't be repaired intentionally? None of that, that I know of, results in Jail time? So why is making software that doesn't last forever warranting jail time? Why isn't just contractual? Did they specify how long it had to work? Why can't software have a shelf life?