Knowledge, professionalism and free movement of labour (visions of the software engineering future)

Software engineers bear heavy responsibilities for the software that the world relies on more and more. To address these responsibilities effectively and efficiently there must be a professional and educational infrastructure to support the software engineering discipline. Also, the 21st century will see greater move to globalisation and thus software engineers should be part of an international labour force that should not suffer unnatural constraints or restrictive practices. Recent developments that should assist in this change are examined and discussed. The efforts that have, or are being undertaken to define a body of knowledge for the discipline are reported and aspects relevant to professional certification, licensing and professional practice are considered. Work is also reported that has been undertaken under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) that is relevant to the harmonisation of professional qualifications and which could lead support to the concept of a global software engineering workforce. Finally a critical evaluation of these developments is given along with suggestions for further improvements