HW:20 Chapter 20
20.10. You work for a software company that has developed a system that provides information about consumers and that is used within a SoS by a number of other retail businesses. They pay you for the services used. Discuss the ethics of changing the system interfaces without notice to coerce users into paying higher charges. Consider this question from the point of view of the company's employees, customers, and shareholders.
The answer to this question depends largely on the relationship between the various SoS managers/companies was established and maintained. Companies choose to use systems of systems because it is to their benefit. They can rely on another entity to create a product that they can use in their own product and by doing so save on cost. Typically, these companies are not choosing to use the system of systems for some altruistic purpose but instead to make their businesses more profitable. This is why it is important for businesses using systems of systems software to understand the risks and work to mitigate them. One way to do that would be to have a contract between businesses to control price increases for a period of time. This is how other systems outside of software engineering work to control costs over time.
There may be circumstances where this would be unethical, in cases where initially the systems being used were free to use but, without warning, they were changed to force payment. In this case, there is a case to be made that the creator of the system should provide the users with a warning about the eventual transition to a pay to use model.
I would tend to place the responsibility on each user of another system to ensure they understand the risks of depending on something that is largely out of their control. There are likely edge cases of this type of scenario that require a deeper dive but largely, users must make informed decisions.
The answer to this question depends largely on the relationship between the various SoS managers/companies was established and maintained. Companies choose to use systems of systems because it is to their benefit. They can rely on another entity to create a product that they can use in their own product and by doing so save on cost. Typically, these companies are not choosing to use the system of systems for some altruistic purpose but instead to make their businesses more profitable. This is why it is important for businesses using systems of systems software to understand the risks and work to mitigate them. One way to do that would be to have a contract between businesses to control price increases for a period of time. This is how other systems outside of software engineering work to control costs over time.
There may be circumstances where this would be unethical, in cases where initially the systems being used were free to use but, without warning, they were changed to force payment. In this case, there is a case to be made that the creator of the system should provide the users with a warning about the eventual transition to a pay to use model.
I would tend to place the responsibility on each user of another system to ensure they understand the risks of depending on something that is largely out of their control. There are likely edge cases of this type of scenario that require a deeper dive but largely, users must make informed decisions.
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