[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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