RE: Programmer Liability

Corporations (public ones at least) have a fiduciary responsibility to
maximize return on investment for their shareholders -- that is to
maximize profit! Period! However, over what timeframe they maximize
profit is open to interpretation. 

For example, I could make a toaster that cost $1 to make and sold for
$50 and I'd make a killing in the short term. Of course if the reason
the thing cost $1 to make was because it was unsafe, started fires, and
killed people, in the long run I would loose so much money that it
wasn't a good business decision. The business took too short-sighted a
view of maximizing profit. 

On the other hand, if I spent $49 to make that $50 toaster I'd probably
have the safest toaster on the face of the planet, and over 1000 years
I'd make a ton of money, but no one that was alive today would care --
the company took too long-sighted a view of maximizing profit.

The trick is balancing risk/time/investment and return. And it's not an
easy thing to do.

-Walden

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Walden H Leverich III
Tech Software
(516) 627-3800 x11
WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.TechSoftInc.com

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)