Ask Slashdot: Developer Responsibility When Apps Might Risk Lives?

First time accepted submitter bashaw writes "What ethical responsibilities do software developers have in determining the role that mobile devices take in our lives? As performance increases, size decreases, and the only limitation is the software available, mobile devices have expanded into new areas of our lives for which they were not designed. This raises the ethical question of who decides what software is available, and therefore what role these devices should take. I am a software developer at the Canadian Avalanche Centre. We recently issued a warning about mobile avalanche search applications that are marketed as avalanche rescue systems. Three smartphone applications are presenting themselves as economical alternatives to avalanche transceivers, the electronic device used by backcountry users to find buried companions in case of an avalanche. The applications are not an adequate replacement for an avalanche transceiver for many reasons, and we are concerned about the use of this software in lieu of a specifically-designed avalanche transceiver. When it is a question of public safety, does the onus fall on the developers, a government agency or the users themselves?"

Developer or publisher?

[gnasher719]

Unless someone shows otherwise, the apps mentioned seem to do what the software developers who created them made them do. But the publisher of these apps tries to sell them for uses that they are not fit for. That's the publisher's problem, not the developers'.

Users

[Anonymous Coward]

App did not warn me about tornado. [xkcd.com]
Seriously, people have to take responsibility for their own choices.
We're too litigious nowadays; we ought to set the standard that grownups are required to think.

A short anecdote

[arielCo]

The headline reminded me of a story in a book of mine:

When Brunel's Ship the SS Great Britain was launched into the River Thames, it made such a splash that several spectators on the opposite bank were drowned. Nowadays, engineers reduce the force of entry into the water by rope tethers which are designed to break at carefully calculated intervals.

When the first computer came into operation in the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam, one of the first tasks was to calculate the appropriate intervals and breaking strains of these tethers. In order to ensure the correctness of the program which did the calculations, the programmers were invited to watch the launching from the first row of the ceremonial viewing stand set up on the opposite bank. They accepted and they survived.

I write EMS/Police/Fire 911 Software

[FrozenFrog]

I have my own company, with 1 business partner. We write software for 911 dispatch systems. Some of our clients require us to carry "Errors and Omissions" liability insurance, which costs us upwards of $15k a year. Along with with the insurance, we have a pretty detailed EULA agreement covering bugs, etc.

If you're writing any kind of software that could directly affect the safety of others, insurance is a must.

Frog

Re:Developer or publisher?

[John.Banister]

While I generally agree with you, I think it's worth looking at the example given by electronic chart programs. They all make you click on a "The prudent mariner will have properly updated paper charts" notice on startup. Once they learned about the publisher's advertising, the developers could make a "notice to idiots" one has to acknowledge on startup saying something like "99.9% of phones made in 2013 don't have the hardware to broadcast on the 457kHz avalanche transceiver band, and this app doesn't trigger that radio in any phones that do have that capability." You could make an option to turn the notice off buried in a setting submenu that idiots won't make the effort to find, but then it'd be good to make enabling the notice part of "activation" to circumvent a publisher selling the program with the notice disabled by default.