Software engineering Ethics Issues of Professional Responsibility

Like other engineering disciplines, software engineering is carried out within a social and legal framework that limits the freedom of people working in that area. As a software engineer, you must accept that your job involves wider responsibilities than simply the application of technical skills. You must also behave in an ethical and morally responsible way if you are to be respected as a professional engineer. It goes without saying that you should uphold normal standards of honesty and integrity. You should not use your skills and abilities to behave in a dishonest way or in a way that will bring disrepute to the software engineering profession. However, there are areas where standards of acceptable behavior are not bound by laws but by the more tenuous notion of professional responsibility. Some of these are:

• Confidentiality: Specialists ought to ordinarily regard the classification of their managers or customers independent of whether a proper secrecy understanding has been agreed upon.
• Competence: Architects ought not distort their degree of ability. They ought not intentionally acknowledge work which is out with their capability.
• Intellectual property rights: Specialists ought to know about nearby laws administering the utilization of licensed innovation like licenses, copyright, and so forth They ought to be mindful so as to guarantee that the licensed innovation of businesses and customers is secured.
• Computer abuse: Programmers ought not utilize their specialized abilities to abuse others’ PCs. PC abuse goes from moderately paltry (game playing on a business’ machine, say) to very genuine (dispersal of infections).

Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice

ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force on Software Engineering Ethics and Professional Practices.

The short version of the code summarizes aspirations at a high level of the abstraction; the clauses that are included in the full version give examples and details of how these aspirations change the way we act as software engineering professionals. Without the aspirations, the details can become legalistic and tedious; without the details, the aspirations can become high sounding but empty; together, the aspirations and the details form a cohesive code.

Software engineers shall commit themselves to making the analysis, specification, design, development, testing and maintenance of software a beneficial and respected profession. In accordance with their commitment to the health, safety and welfare of the public, software engineers shall adhere to the following Eight Principles:

1. PUBLIC: Software engineers shall act consistently with the public interest.
2. CLIENT AND EMPLOYER: Software engineers shall act in a manner that is in the best interests of their client and employer consistent with the public interest.
3. PRODUCT: Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible.
4. JUDGMENT: Software engineers shall maintain integrity and independence in their professional judgment.
5. MANAGEMENT: Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance.
6. PROFESSION: Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.
7. COLLEAGUES: Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their colleagues.
8. SELF: Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an ethical approach to the practice of the profession.

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