Re: Design principles and ethics (was Re: Execute without read (was [...]))

[Bas Wijnen]

On Sat, Apr 29, 2006 at 03:59:16AM +0200, Pierre THIERRY wrote:
> Scribit Bas Wijnen dies 28/04/2006 hora 15:21:
> > > I admit I do sometimes think the same way (and do act in this way),
> > > but I'm not sure it's not morally objectionable, sincerely.
> > It isn't, it is worth a lot of praise.  The position of "I didn't do
> > anything wrong, I only made it posible" combined with "I didn't know I
> > was doing anything wrong, it was so easy" directly leads to bad things
> > happening.
> 
> But we were not talking about doing or letting anyone do something
> wrong. Instead, we talked about morally objectionable uses, which is
> very different IMO.

What I mean by "doing something wrong", is to do something morally
objectionable, such as breaking the law (assuming that you don't consider that
particular law itself immoral).  If I help you break a (good) law, with the
argument that "well, yes, I knew he could break the law, and actually I don't
know what else he would do with the help I gave, but he probably _could_ have
done something else...", then I consider that unethical.  I should at least
have inquired what you were planning to do with my help, given that the most
logical thing would be that you would start breaking the law.

> > In practice, Alice can give Bob a binary, and it's well-known that
> > reverse-engineering a binary is much harder than simply redoing the
> > thing.
> 
> Still, this assertion is far from true in all cases, and thus should not
> be considered a valid argument to prevent a feature.

Ok, that's true.

> > > But building principles on the general or, worse, ideal case is a
> > > very dogmatic position, IMHO.
> > Of course it is.  What's the difference between a dogma and a design
> > principle?
> 
> A dogma is a definite position that cannot admit any exception. Only in
> mathematics, AFAIK, do principles never admit exceptions. Design
> principles are not inflexible laws, merely strong guidelines.

They are inflexible laws.  The only thing you can do against them is change
them.  The difference with a dogma is who has the authority to make such a
change.  But usually, changing either of them is simply not done.

> > We should still educate Bob that he should talk to Alice and they
> > would both be more productive when they look at each other's code.
> 
> Typically, yes. But when you teach, you quickly learn that showing even
> a part of the solution is sometimes the worst thing to do with some
> students.

"Don't do that, then!" ;-)

Thanks,
Bas

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