Real professionals have passed laws to restrict supply and prevent competition.

You do realize that there is licensing for engineers already? It's on a state by state basis in the US although there is a national organization. It's mostly relevant to the degree that you deal with regulatory bodies and have to sign off on drawings, reports, etc.

In my first job out of school I worked on offshore drilling rig design and retrofits. I took an engineer in training exam and would have eventually gotten a PE (Professional Engineer) license had I continued in that field because you had to submit designs to the ABS and other governmental organizations.

> their primary obligation is to the ethical standards of their profession, not to their employers.

OP here. The intended subtext of my post was that it would be nice if our industry had ethical standards as well. (:

That would be nice. It also seems unrealistic in the current climate. What you're suggesting is setting up some kind of Software Engineering Guild, which would require a fundamental shift away from the naive individualism we see today and toward a recognition of collective interests.

Perhaps that's a problem that professional status would help solve.