The whole reason we have engineers is because we used to let anyone call themselves that and lo and behold a bunch of bridges collapsed under load and killed people. Who could’ve thought?!
Almost 2/3rds of the professionals in my family are licensed engineers and we take it extremely seriously.
Canada has only been actually licensing software engineers for a short time compared to other disciplines - but the industry as a whole is due for a reckoning.
If a bug that Linus introduces into the kernel kills someone, is he held accountable? No, of course not the kernel is provided without warranty or any kind of guarantee of fitness.
He’s not an engineer.
He’s a programmer. A very very good one. But he’s not an engineer.