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People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

bbc.co.uk

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Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#121

Post by alistairSH »

tener wrote: post #104
alistairSH wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could go to out of business or to prison because the software you have delivered is faulty And that's the problem. If a civil engineer designed a bridge that maimed hundreds, he would lose his license. There is no license to be lost for software developers. What will be the cost to the company that built this shoddy justice system software? Will anybody go to jail or be personally held accountable? I doubt it…

If you are going to put to jail a single developer, you may as well put to jail the entire company . That in turn wouldn't be practical or fair. It isn't the developer who has signed the contract to deliver the faulty piece of software that started this whole discussion.

It isn't the developer who has signed the contract

Yes, and that's the problem. The engineer didn't sign the contract either, but he DID sign his name on the design. There should be some equivalent in software.

And just as not all "engineers" are professional engineers (licensed), not all software developers should need to be licensed. But, for something like descried in the original article, there damn sure ought to be somebody to hold accountable.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#122

Post by Retric »

flukus wrote: post #109
Retric wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes back to how software is designed and built. On it's own a single bad weld should never endanger a bridge, but we accept a single mistake can bring down software. At it's core that's why software fails so often AND that's what we need to fix.

A single bad weld is isolated, a single bug can propagate a lot of bad data. Software crashing isn't the same as a bridge crashing, in many cases crashing is the best thing that can happen.

We could do the same with computation. On truly mission critical software you see multiple independent implementations of critical functionality.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#123

Post by subway »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #101
hackuser wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pressure needs to come from users, but also from developers It needs to come from government especially. It's a basic function of government to protect the public > How would we react if this story was about a plane crash or a nuclear accident caused by negligence? If there were no government laws penalizing this outcome and regulations preventing it, I'd be horrified.

There are plenty of regulations covering software used in aircraft and nuclear power control. Move on to the next moral panic.

Gee Bob, that did a helluva lot of good in preventing these folks from enduring undue legal hassles.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#124

Post by kafkaesq »

panic wrote: post #6

Tyler Technologies acknowledged in a statement that the upgrade process had been “challenging” - but said poor training was to blame for bad inputting of data and integration with third-party applications that often introduce glitches into the system. People writing software need to take responsibility for how the software is used, especially when it can impact people's lives to this degree. You can't just blame thir…

You can't just blame third party software or the people entering data.

Indeed, this excuse just doesn't pass the smell test. Responsible vendors do (and not only "do", they advocate and insist on) practices like integration testing, and graduated rollouts (so that when process glitches like these inevitably slip through, they're caught when they affect 1 or 2 people -- not 50).

Never do they blame "bad inputting of data."

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#125

Post by tener »

CodeMage wrote: post #110
tener wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company culture is supporting this attitude, then sure - you will have developers saying that. But it isn't the developers that create that culture. This is something the management is responsible for.

People aren't computers, they don't just run the company culture program in their brains. Sure, developers are influenced by company culture, but they contribute to it as well. At one end of the spectrum, you have junior devs, fresh out of school, highly susceptible to the effects of company culture. At the other, you have senior devs with more than a decade of experience, who do a great deal to set the tone and shap…

If you really care about it you can simply do "cultural screening": don't hire people that clearly don't match your attitude requirements. We are doing that.

You can also discourage certain behaviors. If needed, fire offenders.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#126

Post by tener »

alistairSH wrote: post #121
tener wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to put to jail a single developer, you may as well put to jail the entire company . That in turn wouldn't be practical or fair. It isn't the developer who has signed the contract to deliver the faulty piece of software that started this whole discussion.

It isn't the developer who has signed the contract Yes, and that's the problem. The engineer didn't sign the contract either, but he DID sign his name on the design. There should be some equivalent in software. And just as not all "engineers" are professional engineers (licensed), not all software developers should need to be licensed. But, for something like descried in the original article, there damn sure ought to…

> But, for something like descried in the original article, there damn sure ought to be somebody to hold accountable.

Yes. Currently you can sue the company that delivered the stuff.

Stop blaming the wrong people please.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#127

Post by ptaipale »

sedachv wrote: post #105
ptaipale wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the fault probably does not lie in someone writing bad software; it's more about the authorities themselves defining a bad workflow when specifying the system. I say this based on just a bit of personal experience in working with authorities and their mode of operation (in Europe but I expect US is not that different): it's often about covering one's ass by insisting on lots of checks and balances, and the w…

> However, the fault probably does not lie in someone writing bad software; it's more about the authorities themselves defining a bad workflow when specifying the system. > This looks like fundamentally a public sector process issue. They'll improve it though. The better, "old system" was ordered by the same government office - two different results from the same "public sector process" should give a hint that maybe…

The old system was ordered maybe 20 years ago, maybe even longer. Lots of new legislation has been introduced since that, and perhaps that new legislation is the very reason why some systems had to be renewed.

Also, a new generation of public servants are at work, defining and specifying the work.

Who remembers, were there problems at the time when the old system was taken to use?

No, I'm not suggesting courts should be privatised, but the ever-expanding legislation is a problem throughout the Western world (I'm not from the US).

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#128

Post by kazinator »

> had recently finished a six-month drug programme after he was caught in possession of marijuana and ecstasy.

THAT is what fucking should not have happened in the first place.

Let's not shift the focus to some glitchy software issues that will likely get worked out.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#129

Post by jonnathanson »

noir_lord wrote: post #75
acbabis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but that system's gonna be really tough on the software industry. Consider what would happen when a famous third-party API has security flaw. Most third-party libraries' licenses have an "as-is" clause and even mature third-party software has exploits sometimes (e.g. Java applets). If you wanted to use a library in a project, you would have to - a) read the entire thing to see if…

I own one of those small shops so I'm not unsympathetic but few other industries get away with 'as-is' disclaimers, Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc? The present system is a pass the parcel of blame with no one taking any responsibility, tonnes of shit, insecure systems written and designed poorly. Eventually something will give.

"Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc?"

This. This is the most important point I've read so far. The key word here is "imagine."

I think even we, as an industry, don't quite grok the degree to which software truly has eaten the world -- and the degree to which it now is every bit as important, as life-or-death, as things like cars, airplane travel, or even medicine. We hold these goods to certain standards because we deem them extremely critical -- too important to be left to the de facto standards set by the operation of a wild-west market. It's about time the notion of standards-free software shocked people as much as the notion of standards-free engineering in any other systemically critical industry.

I'd prefer self-established standards set by the industry to government-imposed standards set by lay bureaucrats. But the latter is coming eventually if the former never does.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#130

Post by splicer »

fataliss wrote: post #62

I don't get why such software isn't an open source initiative. I wish the government would give more legitimacy to orgs like "code for america". Who wants a proprietary closed janky software to rule wether you are a criminal or not? Nobody, that's who. The only beneficiaries in that story are the people on the other hand of the contract, making $5M for an half baked piece of software!

While I certainly agree that all government software should be open source, it sounds like a big part of the problem here was a failure in gathering accurate requirements (which is a very expensive endeavor).
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