There is a better way [2], but I don't know how we would convince politicians that there is a better way.
[1]: >>38788919
[2]: https://gavinhoward.com/2023/11/how-to-fund-foss-save-it-fro...
It’ll turn into the aerospace industry where “if it hasn’t flown, it can’t fly.” This is among other things why we still burn leaded gas in small planes. Replacing it is easy, but the cost of certifying any kind of new design is insane.
I’ve always just been against any such regulation because I have zero confidence our technically ignorant politicians can do it well.
I also think it’s likely to be sabotaged by consultants and big tech monopolists who see an opportunity to lock out competitors or create gravy trains.
That is why I want the industry to self-regulate with professional licensure first.
If we let politicians do it, they'll do it wrong. If we do it first, and push hard to have politicians adopt our system when they've decided that regulation will happen, then we have a chance that it won't be awful.
As for consultants, yes, that could be a problem. However, I think professional licensure would minimize that because requiring a Professional Software Engineer (PSWE) on a project means having someone there for the long term, dedicated to the project, which is antithetical to consultants game plan to run either short projects or many projects at once.
As for Big Tech monopolists, yes that could be a problem. However, I think professional licensure, with a Code of Ethics, would actually give the PSWE at such companies the ability to say no to such monopolization. And they would, if we could actually threaten loss of license.
So you are correct that my proposal isn't perfect, but I do think it minimizes the risk of bad things happening among the others.
What tends to happen with professional licensing is that barriers to entry are erected, reducing the supply of labour and artificially increasing the price of labour for existing software engineers.
See cosmetology licenses for example: it is ludicrous that it is illegal to shampoo someone's hair in New York without completing a 1,000 hour course of study or having 5 years (!!!) of experience [1]. Yeah, sure, you shouldn't be spreading diseases or anything, but this is far, far beyond that.
A less ridiculous example: doctors. In the US, there is a hilariously restrictive number of residency places available, and this number is set by the government and backed by the American Medical Association. This inflates doctors' wages and makes it much harder to become a doctor than is necessary. There's a strong case for licensing doctors, but the particular way it's done in the US is obviously suboptimal.
My point is that yes, politicians writing regulations wrong will hurt the industry, but strangling the industry by limiting the number of software engineers can also cause harm.
I believe you know this already ("my proposal isn't perfect") so don't take this as an argument, I'm just making the possible downsides explicit and adding some detail.