Having regard to the fact that I am a free human being, you understand that by entering any business relationship with me playing a role of contractor or employee, you accept my inalienable, unrestrictable moral right I own by nature, to refuse to perform any task if it might, in my sole opinion, endanger other human beings or their legit interests. This right must not be canceled or limited by any statement of signed agreement.
Signature:
Wojciech Małota-Wójcik
I decided to publish this manifesto because I see more and more people comming to IT are not "engineers by birth", they enter this proffesion being tempted by huge market demand and high salaries. It's commendable if someone looks for success in life. Whoever wants to come, make great software and earn good money is welcomed with open arms, world is in urgent need of such people. The problem is that more and more engineers in IT industry are ready to commit any rubbish they are expected to, without taking neither quality nor responsibility into account, just to get their paycheck. Of course there are places where it doesn't really matter or at least doesn't hurt anyone. On the other hand there are sectors where this philosophy literally kills people or causes serious, irreversible losses. Many developers argue that they just implement tasks, that there is someone else, in management board, who makes decisions and it's not our responsibility if things go wrong. I couldn't disagree more. We, engineers, have power to accept or refuse tasks we are expected to accomplish. Suppose your manager got some irresponsible, dangerous idea, you are there to save the world by refusing bringing this into life.
We are in charge of building the community of free IT engineers who declare their moral right to prevent horrible ideas from being implemented. We have a power to save the world from next crappy falling airplane or fund-loosing crypto exchange.
If you agree and want to spread the idea, please fork this repository, put your signature on it and add link to it on your LinkedIn profile or wherever you want to.
The up-to-date version of declaration is available at https://github.com/outofforest/declaration-of-responsibility