[long] Re: Legal traps in open source
Alex Satrapa
grail at goldweb.com.au
Wed Oct 30 13:33:28 EST 2002
Ben Elliston wrote:
> Alright -- let's do that, then. How many people do you know that
> would immediately be excluded from working in the field due to
> insufficient qualifications?
You only need one qualified Engineer for small projects.
Do you think everyone involved in building the Gunghalin Drive flyover
is a Civil Engineer?
No - there are more likely only two or three Civil Engineers.
Then you have the unskilled/semi-skilled workers - the Traffic
Controllers (lollipop men - that's about 1 days' training, which I've
actually done), the "vibrating compactor" operators (used to be called
Steam Rollers until they weren't steam powered anymore) - they only need
to know how to use an accelerator, brake and steering wheel - and the
truck drivers (a Medium/Heavy Rigid Vehicle licence isn't that
intellectually draining).
Then you have the skilled workers - the excavator operators (that's me
;), the skid steer operators (me again!), the concreters, and the OH&S
supervisor.
Similarly in the computing industry, you have the unskilled/semi-skilled
workers - the Visual Basic programmers, the MCSE "sysadmins" and the
C/C++ code monkeys.
You have the skilled workers - the Makefile editors, the Unix sysadmins,
the Java developers and Perl scripters. These guys actually have to
know what they're doing.
Then you have the Engineer - that's the guy with the degree, who also
has the professional indemnity insurance (even though every contract
says, "I'm not liable"). You only need the one.
Same goes for Real Estate (each agency only needs one licenced Real
Estate agent) - heck, to be a licenced Real Estate agent, you need more
training than to be manager of a company!
But I don't think qualifications are the issue. A well qualified idiot
can make bigger mistakes than an unqualified expert. It's the guy with
the better marketing and legal teams will end up making the most money
(that's the lesson I learned from Bill Gates).
So I disagree with your statement Ben - making software manufacturers
liable for faults that lead to hardware or data damage will not
necessarily force unqualified people out of the industry - it's big
companies' knee-jerk reactions that will force the unqualified out (and
most companies I know would rather train the staff they already have,
than fire them and hire "qualified" staff - "most" doesn't apply to my
previous employer for example). Making software manufacturers liable
for faults will merely force the stupid people out very quickly.
Alex
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