Software Design & Development Notes

9.1 Development and Impact of Software Solutions
9.1.1 Social and ethical issues
Rights and responsibilities of software developers
Rights refer to entitlements that are due to them e.g. how other people use and duplicate their products. Responsibilities is the need for software developers to be accountable of reliability, virus free, etc towards the user
• Authorship o Refers to ownership of a particular piece of work, the author has rights in regard to reproduction and distribution of their work
• Reliability o Purchasers have rights to expect the product to consistently perform the required tasks efficiently and without error. Developers should consider these factors to ensure maximum reliability:
 Hardware
 Operating System
 Other software
 Runtime errors
• Quality o Finally quality is an important responsibility for developers. A good quality product will meet the program requirements in an efficient way. Quality assurance is a set of procedures used to certify that a generated product meets specified criteria with respect to quality and reliability
• Response to Problems o Developers have a responsibility to ensure that any problems users encounters with their products are resolved in a timely, accurate and efficient manner, e.g. the developer refund or inform the customer.
• Code of Conduct o An official agreement describing ethical and moral obligations of the developer.
• Viruses o Software that deliberately produces some undesirable or unwanted result. Developers have a responsibility to ensure their products do not contain viruses.

Software Piracy and Copyright
Software piracy is the criminal act of illegally copying and use of software.
• Intellectual property o Intellectual property is something that belongs to your mind or intellect. Purchasing a software product does not give you the ownership rights but the customer just purchases a licence to use the software.
• Plagiarism o The process of claiming authorship of an