To License or not to License

We have debated the license (as in Licensed Developers, not licensing our software) question a few times. Mow ACM and IEEE have weighed in with official positions. ACM withdrew from SWECC because they disagreed with their efforts to license software engineers.

ACM Council believes that the current efforts of the Software Engineering Coordinating Committee (SWECC) toward licensing is misguided as they assume that software engineering is a profession appropriate for licensing under the rubric of the Professional Engineers Licensing structure and requirements.

ACM goes on to present a list of reasons why licensing Software Engineers as Professional Engineers was not a good idea:

• Licensing as Professional Engineers would be impractical for software engineers, because it would require examinations over subjects most software engineers neither study in their formal education nor need in order to practice competent software engineering.
• Licensing software engineers as Professional Engineers would have no or little effect on the safety of the software produced.
• The SWEBOK effort, which specifically excludes from the body of knowledge the special knowledge required for most safety-critical systems (such as real-time software engineering techniques), will have little relevance for safety-critical systems, and it dangerously excludes the most important knowledge required to build these systems.
• Each industry and software engineering domain will need to determine an appropriate mix of approaches that work together to solve their particular problems and fit within the cultural context of the particular industry. There are no simple and universal fixes to solve the problem of ensuring public safety. Effective approaches will involve establishing accountability, competency within specific application domains and job responsibilities, liability, regulation where appropriate, standards, voluntary product certification and warranties, and industry-specific requirements. Licensing as Professional Engineers would not be an effective way to accomplish any of these goals.

IEEE on the other hand disagrees. In fact, the IEEE-CS sponsors the Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) Program. The provide their own arguments for why individuals should consider certification, but don't address the issue as a whole:

Benefits for becoming certified may come in the form of

• Additional knowledge and skills that allow you to move into a new area or perform your current job more effectively
• Exposure to the latest software, equipment or other knowledge-based advantages you might not otherwise have
• Increased level of expertise
• Contact and networking with top-performing professionals in your field, around the world
• Customer confidence based on your evidence of qualifications and suitability for the task at hand or project put out for bids.
• Added confidence

Subject Tags: [Programming] [IEEE] [ACM] [License] [Engineer] [Professional]