Houston, we may have a problem: Results of an exploratory inquiry on software developers' knowledge about Codes of Ethics

• Main Authors: Flores, Fabiana Figueira Sanches, Meira, Silvio Romero Lemos de
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer science; developer; Education; Ethics; Focusing; Information systems; professional; Software; Software engineering; Systems Engineering
• ISSN: 2472-9647
• DOI: 10.1109/SYSCON.2019.8836945

Since the first computer development, society's dependency on software has continually grown, reaching, nowadays, an unquestionable degree with ubiquitous engineering systems. Greater the dependency on software, greater the social importance of the practices of all the players involved in the software development, being extremely relevant, in benefit of individuals and the public in general, the adoption of an ethical behavior. Intending to do an initial evaluation about software developers' knowledge about Codes of Ethics, it was done the exploratory investigation here exposed. In a pragmatic and quantitative approach, this study was based on: a) a survey in which respondents were 103 volunteer software development professionals that, at the same time, were students in two Computer Science postgraduate programs (a Master in Science and a Doctorate program); b) curricular analysis of 115 undergraduate courses in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Information Systems of 64 Universities that also had postgraduate programs. Results indicate that: a) a big part of software engineers (64%) had not had any contact with a Code of Ethics (any Code of Ethics and not necessarily a Software Engineering Code of Ethics); b) the mentioned ratio causes distress when considered the ubiquitous nature of software nowadays, the importance of software to people in general and to enterprises, the exemption of licensing for some software professions in the country in which the investigation took place and the existence of a Code of Ethics directed to software engineers (the IEEE/ ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics); c) the "unfamiliarity" of software engineers with Code of Ethics and with a Code specially related to their profession is in part originated in the Academy, according to the curricular analysis done in this inquiry; d) not knowing anything about Ethics is worrisome because professional conducts, then, become extremely dependent on professionals own consciences, consciences that may vary in a large spectrum and may lead to huge bad consequences to individuals and to the society in general, as it already happened in Human History; e) whether software is the result of a collective work, the unethical work of a single professional can contaminate the process of development, other software professionals and the final product itself, making employers and enterprises to be the ones exclusively charged by damages, if adopted theories that refute individual resp