MrQuimico
As it is, I think this is going to be very similar to what is already required for some specific industries like healthcare or finance. Startups that want to operate in these industries already need to go through some certification processes of their products and services. Most startups will probably fall under the "low risk status" category until they are a big enough. If self-assessment is anything similar to what it is already required for things like PCI DSS or GDPR, then most small companies will be fine until they are big enough to care.
And by the way, there is no easy way for the EU to regulate that to write software you need a specific degree.
Also, where do you live that businesses selling goods to you are not liable if they don’t work as expected? This is not a software problem, the problem here is that a key doesn’t work as expected. The fact that it may “have software” somewhere doesn’t make the problem go away.
My point being that better software is not going to be written just because the people writing it is afraid of losing their license or being held liable, because in many circumstances that can already happen.
The problem here are not only the developers and the crappy code. Some people here put this thing in production knowing that it was faulty, or once they knew it didn't work as expected they did all they could to hide this for years, blaming others of their own mistakes.
And yes, I agree we need to be better. But it's very important to understand that many of the potential licensed software engineers that are already writing crappy software today and will continue to do so if licensed because they just don't know better.
So far I haven't got any communication from OVH alerting me about this. I think that's the first thing they should do, alerting their customers that something it's happening.
Anyway I was running a service that I was about to close, so this may be it. I do have a recovery plan, but I don't know it it is worth it at this point.
I'm never using OVH again. The fire can happen, but don't ask me about my recovery plan, what about yours?
Software, as an object, is harmless. It can be used for good or evil, just like anything else. So if anybody needs an oath is the people using the software, not the people building it.
GDPR solves that because if you want to do business with European citizens you must comply with it no matter where you are. GDPR is not only about the fines, it stablishes protocols to communicate breaches, makes somebody responsible for it (the DPO) and makes distinctions between the different types of data and the requirements to handle it.
Also, enforcing GDPR is no joke, and we are still learning its consequences (http://www.london-registrars.co.uk/first-prison-sentence-ari...).
As I see it, Licensed Data Engineers won't make companies more careful with our data, since all they need to do is to sue them and fire them when there is a problem. We need laws that make data hard to use, so companies will only ask for what they really need, will use the data with a purpose and will store it only while it's useful.
Software is more similar to a car than it is to a bridge. Companies build and sell them all over the world. Cars are certified at each country as needed, but it doesn't matter who is building them, as long as they meet all the requirements. Software should be similar.
Sites that are not niche specific (like newspapers) shouldn't try to microtarget each user. They lose control of the ads they show near their content, making them less relevant. I'm tired of reading news about the coronavirus crisis surrounded by Amazon's offers on some items I visited a month ago. I still think ads are better when they are somewhat related to the content you are reading, rather than to the user's past activity on other websites.