The age of computers has fundamentally altered the way human societies function in the 21st century. The article “Cultural Software” by Lev Manovich examines how software has affected culture and its effects on society. Manovich stresses the significance of analyzing how software shapes culture, and excluding software development from analysis can have severe consequences for society. The Vietnamese IT Enterprise, Rikkeisoft’s 2023 blog post “Complete Guide to Software Development Requirements” explains software developers have clear requirements they must meet which “…serve as the foundation for software development and provide the basis for defining and verifying the software’s functionality. Requirements also provide a roadmap for software development, guiding the development process and ensuring that the software system meets its intended purpose” (Rikkeisoft). In other words, software requirements drive the development of software. The requirements of software should be transparently and easily available to the public since they are not bound to intellectual property to ensure the proper use of the software.
The software lifecycle is defined in four phases of development which includes the planning, requirements, implementation, and testing. There are different levels of federal, transportation, and accessibility requirements. These requirements ensure that the software is designed according to the customer’s expectations through the software’s life cycle. The development process of software can be translated into different languages such as HTML, C+, Python, and Lennox which is why it’s impossible to copyright software. However, these languages in the software development process appear during the implementation and testing phases that are reliant on requirements. This level of transparency should also allow public access so that interested parties can learn and validate what the software does. This does not include access to intellectual property of how it works. According to the Liverpool Data Research Associates (LDRA) article “Demystify the who, what, when[,] and why of successful DO-178C compliance.” states, that the DO-178B standard evolved to the DO-178C standard in January 2012 to “…improved safety requirements and the accommodation of new technologies for development and verification activities in civil avionics systems” (LDRA). Therefore the software used for aeronautic objects has to defer to the same requirements from the DO-178C governmental standard. Since the intellectual property has to abide by formal regulated requirements, there is no purpose to withhold this information from the public.
According to Fuller’s excerpt within Manovich’s article, Fuller states “…artists, scientists, engineers, hackers, designers, and scholars in the humanities and social sciences are finding that for the questions they face, and the things they need to build, an expanded understanding of software is necessary” (Manovich, 2011, as cited in Fuller, 2008). Manovich’s argument that the public has access to all the software development data does not seem necessary or reasonable. For one, the average citizen would be challenged to understand high levels of technical jargon. Second, the individuals who do understand the technology and codes would have access to intellectual property. In my opinion, giving the public access to the requirements, or developmental framework, of modern and previously developed software, allows them the ability to analyze the purpose and rationale for the software. Allowing access to this information for study on the impact on society should be adequate.