AUTHOR
Laurette Pretorius and Andries Barnard

ABSTRACT

Modular design and analysis approaches proliferate in computing, and in particular in software design. Layered approaches also belong to this paradigm. The ethical discussion and analysis of software designs and implementations, and of software artefacts for solving real problems may also benefit from such inherent structure. In particular we briefly review an appropriate layered approach, the extended OSI model for Internet-based computing, which has been the subject of ethical discussion (Gleason and Friedman, 2004). We also summarise the modelling of Web services as a protocol stack consisting of six layers (Jeckle and Wilde, 2004) for the purposes of an ethical discussion thereof.

The purpose of the somewhat technical discussion of the layered approaches is to contextualise and to focus the ethical discussion and may be justified as follows: In computing the whole point of modularity, and in particular layeredness, is that it facilitates the identification (and isolation) of functionality and its associated issues (and problems). The idea is that by resolving the individual “simple” issues, the more complex system that is built out of the different modules would be easier to design and validate. We are of the opinion that this modularity, which is usually based on (computational) functionality and allows system designers to focus on one issue at a time, will also be of significance in the ethical analysis of computationally complex systems. In this paper we subject each layer of this model to an ethical discussion appropriate for the specific layer on the basis of its associated functionality.

At the core of cyberspace are the physical components and attributes that facilitate interconnectivity. Theoretically the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a comprehensive representation of what happens between two nodes on a network. This model divides networking architecture into 7 layers; viz. the Physical, Data link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and Application layers (Dean, 2000). Gleason and Friedman (2004) argue that the OSI model is an accessible and descriptive model of cyberspace that enables an extension of this model in order to focus on humanistic and ethical issues. They propose three additional layers “to elucidate the human side of the equation”. These three layers are the user interface, interpretation and impact layers.

The Web services paradigm of computing has become a de facto standard in Internet computing. Indeed, the “Gartner Group predicts that by 2004 Web services will dominate deployment of new application solutions for Fortune2000 companies, and companies that fail to adopt this technology will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage” (Beyond Integration, 2003).

It so happens that the Web Services paradigm of Internet computing still (in 2005) continues to grow in use and popularity. Moreover, it may be conceptualised as a layered approach where each layer has it own functionality, as given below. What we are aiming to do, is to exploit this modularity in order to focus on the particular ethical issues of each individual layer separately. This approach allows us to appropriately apply different ethical theories/analyses/approaches to different layers. As a first step we focus on each layer individually, but it would certainly be interesting to explore the ethical interconnections/dependencies between neighbouring layers as well. The latter investigation falls outside the scope of this paper, but is the subject of future work.

Jeckle and Wilde (2004) propose a six layered protocol stack to provide a conceptual understanding of Web services application artefacts in general. The idea behind Jeckle and Wilde’s (2004) proposal is to cluster related functionally in a horizontal manner, thus constituting separate layers.

The first layer, the underlying protocol layer, provides transport mechanisms such as, for example, HTTP and TCP. The second layer, the URI, XML and SOAP layer, is responsible for reliably transmitting data between two communication peers that are connected through a first layer infrastructure. At the next layer, the addressing and routing layer, the logical connections for communication are provided. The fourth layer is the security and message pattern layer, which sets out a collection of message patterns that define the sequence and cardinality of abstract messages, which can be applied to every communication protocol, e.g. SOAP. Session management essentially constitute the basis of layer 5, the coordination layer. Potential candidates for this layer include BPEL4WS and WS-Choreography (Jeckle and Wilde, 2004). The sixth layer, the vocabulary layer, is responsible for mapping the application’s data model into a form that can be transmitted between communicating peers. In the Web services world XML Schema accomplishes this.

In summary, the main focus of our paper is to consider ethical issues and/or perspectives that arise at the various layers of the Web services protocol stack of Jeckle and Wilde (2004). We base our discussion on some recent computing ethics initiatives, among others, disclosive computer ethics (Brey, 2004), information ethics (Floridi and Sanders, 2003 and 2004) and the ethics of surrogate agents (Johnson and Powers, 2004). We explore their applicability to the individual layers within their various contexts as presented by (Jeckle and Wilde, 2004).

REFERENCES

Beyond Integration: Assembling Business Solutions from Web Services (2003). Above All Software. Accessed September 2004 at http://www.aboveallsoftware.com.

Brey, P. (2004). Disclosive Computer Ethics, Readings in cyberethics, Second edition, (eds. R.A. Spinello and H.T. Tavani), Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, Massachusetts, pp.55-66.

Dean, T. (2000). Network Guide to Networks, Course Technology Thomson Learning: Cambridge, MA.

Floridi, L. and Sanders, J.W. (2003). Internet Ethics: the Constructionist Values of Homo Poeiticus, Invited chapter for The Impact of the Internet on Our Moral Lives; (ed. R. Cavalier) (SUNY: Fall 2003). Accessed June 2004 at http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi/ .

Floridi, L. and Sanders, J.W. (2004). The Foundationalist Debate in Computer Ethics, Readings in cyberethics, Second edition, (eds. R.A. Spinello and H.T. Tavani), Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, Massachusetts, pp.81-95.

Gleason D.H. and Friedman L. (2004). Proposal for an Accessible Conception of Cyberspace, Proceedings of the seventh international conference: Challenges for the Citizen of the of the Information society – ETHICOMP2004, (eds. T.W. Bynum, N. Pouloudi, S. Rogerson and T. Spyrou), Volume 1, pp. 318-329.

Jeckle, M. and Wilde, E. (2004). Identical Principals, Higher Layers: Modeling Web Services as Protocol Stack, XML Europe 2004, Amsterdam, April 2004. Accessed August 2004 at http://dret.net/netdret/docs/wilde-xmleurope2004.pdf.

Johnson, D.G. and Powers, T.M. (2004). Computers as surrogate agents, Proceedings of the seventh international conference: Challenges for the Citizen of the of the Information society – ETHICOMP2004, (eds. T.W. Bynum, N. Pouloudi, S. Rogerson and T. Spyrou), Volume 1, pp. 422-435.

AUTHOR
Vance Lockton and Richard Rosenberg

ABSTRACT

Surveillance means, literally, ‘to watch from above.’ Modern surveillance technologies allow exactly that to occur. From surveillance cameras on public streets, to GPS-enabled vehicles, to recorded electronic transactions, our lives are becoming increasingly observed from on high. Some see great promise in this practice; in theory, surveillance makes us safer. After all, if every inch of the globe was viewed, recorded and indexed, virtually no deviance from social norms (such as criminal activity) would go undetected. Ironically though, detractors of ubiquitous surveillance would make the exact same statement, noting that social progress demands deviance from accepted norms. In describing the growth of surveillance technology, this paper will examine both the benefits (i.e., increased safety) and detriments (decreased freedom) that result from the presence of these technologies within our society.

For many people, the first technology that is associated with electronic surveillance is closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. This association is not surprising; for instance, the United Kingdom operates a network of electronic eyes which numbers over 4.2 million; about 1 for every 14 citizens. It was estimated that on an average day in 1999, a person operating in an urban centre would have their image captured by at least 300 camerasi. China may not be far behind with their Golden Shield project; Shanghai has announced that it will be placing over 200 000 cameras citywide by 2010ii. The UK system was introduced to combat IRA bombings; China envisions a means of reducing police reaction times to demonstrations.iii It can safely be assumed, though, that these will not be the only uses of these networks (in fact, CCTV in the UK is already a general purpose crime fighting tool). Will anti-government protesters be identified, and perhaps silenced or punished? More disturbingly, will all people with an unusual appearance or of certain ethnicities be singled out for greater scrutiny? The likelihood of these scenarios and others will be discussed in this paper.

The public’s reaction to surveillance cameras varies depending on the question. When Americans were asked in 2003 about the expansion of public camera surveillance to help deal with those suspected of terrorism, 62% of respondents were in favouri. However, the same survey found that 91.2% of respondents rated ‘not having someone watch you or listen to you without your permission’ as being important. These numbers illustrate a very important point about the public perception of surveillance: by avoiding the mention of the specific freedoms which may be lost, support can be garnered for the sacrificing of civil liberties in the name of public safety. This paper will further examine this effect, and the dangerous ramifications of it.

Standard CCTV cameras are of course not all of the surveillance industry. This paper will describe the rise of many other technologies which can be used to watch the public, including: facial recognition, which is incorporated into the CCTV systems of many cities, including Tampa, Florida and Prague; the use of ‘intelligent’ computers to monitor CCTV feeds for ‘suspicious’ behaviours, such as is the case in Chicago; Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which will soon be added to passports, and may eventually find its way into all consumer goods; and Global Positioning System (GPS) units, which by law must be added to cellular phones, and which a New York judge recently declared police did not need a court order to use to track a suspect’s vehicle.

The amount of physical surveillance that takes place is troubling enough, but it becomes frightening when combined with the phenomenon of data mining. The idea behind data mining is that if enough information is gathered, patterns can be extracted which would predict anything from shopping patterns to terrorist activity. To this end, governments and corporations have begun to combine the myriad of databases in existence in order to develop a detailed picture of the lives of individuals. For instance, the US’s now-defunct Total Information Awareness (TIA) project would have contained “financial, medical, travel, ‘place/event entry,’ transportation, housing and communication”i records for many millions of Americans. Information gathering has become a multi-billion dollar industry, patronized by police departments, corporations and government agencies. These organizations believe in the power of information; thus, would it be at all surprising if data gathered by physical surveillance (when a person is recognized by an RFID reader, or a CCTV camera with facial recognition) were added to the dossiers of individuals? This paper will examine the effects of data mining on surveillance, as well as the dangers to the liberties of citizens caused by the existence of these detailed profiles of their lives.

In order to examine the future of surveillance, attention must be paid to its past. To this end, the work of David Lyon on the rise of the surveillance society will be examined, as well as the social and institutional contexts within which major surveillance revolutions have occurred. By showing parallels to the society created by the events of 9/11, an attempt will be made to infer possible future scenarios for surveillance levels in America.

Finally, throughout this paper the trade-offs of surveillance will be examined. The benefits are frequently stated: surveillance increases safety. However, the detriments are sometimes unclear. Are the objections to this technology simply due to lack of comfort and the Orwellian scenarios shouted by many activists? This paper will argue that in fact ubiquitous surveillance is a threat to the freedoms of movement and speech, two of the foundations of a free society. An uncomfortable public is seeing the structure of a surveillance society being built around them; this is a situation which must be stopped.

REFERENCES

Norris, McCahill & Wood, eds. Surveillance and Society. 2 (2/3): 110-135. 2004.

Ibid.

Walton, G. China’s Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in The People’s Republic of China. 2001. Available at: http://www.dd-rd.ca/english/commdoc/publications

Louis Harris & Assoc. poll no. 18203. 2003. Available at: http://cgi.irss.unc.edu/cgi-bin/POLL/search

McCullagh, D. Snooping By Satellite. 2005. Available at: http://news.com.com/Snooping+by+satellite/

Stanley, J. The Surveillance-Industrial Complex. 2004. Available at: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=16224&c=207

AUTHOR
Mikael Erlandsson and Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos

ABSTRACT

As a result of the advances made within the field of information technology, many complex and cognitively demanding tools have been introduced into modern transportation. This technology, introduced with the purpose of aiding, can sometimes work against the drivers’ goals. One example is the navigation systems that are getting common in modern cars. When the very first navigation systems were introduced, the interaction with them was complicated and demanded much attention, especially to enter new destinations [Llaneras & Singer, 2003]. It is ethically questionable if navigation systems with such problems should be let out on the roads. In a situation like this, who will identify the problem? How is it dealt with, and by whom? The primary focus within the car business is not ethical dilemmas, and the level of ethical awareness is expected to be low. Therefore, it could be valuable to aid the practitioners by providing ethical tools and skills that are suited for them.

Here we do not use normative moral theory to argue about what is morally right or wrong, in fact we do not even attempt to find an answer at all. We only suggest a tool that can aid people, who are not informed about ethical theories, when making decisions related to ethical aspects. This tool can increase the level of ethical competence before a decision is taken, by simply describing all relevant values and aspects for all involved parts in a structured way. By iteratively considering how each possible action or decision affects each possible value for each involved person, company, organisation, etc, a broader and more complex view of the moral dilemma is achieved. The output from this tool works both as a decision support, but also as a kind of documentation for future reference, for continuous dialog and for argumentation reasons. If someone later questions a decision then the documentation can work to explain it, or if additional aspects of the dilemma are revealed then the documentation can be extended with this.

A successful inclusion of moral aspects in car navigation systems analysis, decision making and decision application can easily fail. The cause of this failure may be found in the way thinking, problem solving and decision making are performed by, for example, a car manufacturer. People use different ways to handle moral problems. Psychological theory and research [Kohlberg, 1985; Piaget, 1932] differentiate between two different moral functions, heteronomy and autonomy, which decide a person’s ability to handle moral problems. Heteronomy is constrained and involve authoritarian thinking. Heteronomous thinking is a purely automatic reflex or it is fixed on one or a few general moral principles, while ignoring other principles relevant to the same problem. Autonomy, on the other hand, is dominated by asking questions, by a continuous search for missing parts, and of an effort to take control of the situation. Its main emotional characteristics are insecurity and anxiety, which are nevertheless effectively lessened by the confidence on one’s own ability to handle moral issues. Autonomy is a psychological process of ethical problem solving and decision making, which lays the ground for higher ethical competence. The autonomy tool described here uses a matrix in which all alternative ways to treat a moral problem are systematically compared with all values and aspects relevant to anyone affected by it. This matrix effectively describes a more complex picture of the problem. In this study, two researchers examined the dilemma of introducing navigation systems in car using the autonomy method

Technically our approach is similar to other ethical tools suggested previously, for example Paramedic [Collins & Miller, 1992] and Value Sensitive Design (VSD) [Friedman, Kahn and Borning, in press]. However, those approaches do not focus exclusively on what psychological theory and research describe as the basis of competent ethical problem solving and decision making, namely the tension between heteronomous and autonomous moral reasoning [Kohlberg, 1985; Piaget, 1932]. What we need are tools that promote autonomy and hinder heteronomy. Both Paramedic and VSD are excellent tools to systematize, organize and take control of own thinking on concrete moral issues. Nevertheless, since both, in different degrees, urge and lead the extension of thinking to moral philosophical considerations and other details there is a risk of being too complex and of missing the main goal, namely blocking heteronomous thinking. Focus should be on how to handle practical problems rather than on philosophical normative issues.

The suggested tool does not provide the right answer, but is rather a document used for decision support. Even though this tool can be useful for ethical decisions, it is general enough to be used in any situation where an autonomous approach is favourable. The process of creating and refining the matrix takes both time and effort, compared to more heteronomous approaches. Qualitative analyses of this study indicate that the usage of this method to this particular problem gave a better understanding of the complexity of studied dilemma. However, it is not possible to cover all aspects of a certain dilemma. Because of this, it is also difficult to know when to stop i.e. how much is enough. This method needs to predict how each action affects the values of each involved party, but many times the outcome of different decisions is not known in advance. Finally, if someone questions the appropriateness of a decision by referring to some aspect relevant to that person, the resulting document from the autonomy method will show either that this aspect was missed during the decision making, or that it was in fact considered together with all other aspects but that the conclusion was another. In either case, the decision maker has the ability to explain, motivate and support the decision made.

REFERENCES

Collins, W. R. and Miller, K. W. (1992). Paramedic ethics for computer professionals. Journal of Systems Software, 17, 23-38.

Friedman, B., Kahn, P. H. Jr. and Borning, A. (in press). Value sensitive design and information systems. In P. Zhang & D. Galletta (Eds.), Human-computer interaction in management information systems: Foundations. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc.

Kohlberg, L. (1985). The just community: Approach to moral education in theory and practice. In M. Berkowitz & F. Oser (Eds.), Moral education: Theory and application. (pp.27-87). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Llaneras, R. E. and Singer, J. P. (2003). In-vehicle navigation systems: Interface characteristics and industry trends. Proceedings of the Second International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa.

Piaget, J., (1932). The moral judgement of the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (pp.1-103).

AUTHOR
Marc Demarest

ABSTRACT

Unlike any other porous biomaterial, silicon can be finely controlled and ‘tuned’ to provide a support matrix with a programmed ‘in-vivo’ life. The key discoveries that make BioSilicon? an enabling platform technology in the pharmaceutical industry are biocompatibility and controllable biodegradability.

PSividia Limited press release, July 2003

The motor is so small that the researchers do not yet know exactly how it behaves. BBC News report on the Berkeley nanomotor, 100 million of which can fit on the head of a pin. We like to talk about new technologies – most recently, information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology – as arriving before we are prepared, socioculturally, to deal with their broad sociotechnical implications, and to lay the blame for the majority of the often-frightening unintended consequences of those technologies on their premature commercialization and deployment. This narrative is convenient and perhaps broadly accurate where the Industrial Revolution is concerned, but in the cases of the electromechanical and silicon revolutions of the last century, as well as the transhuman augmentation revolution of this century, the narrative is a convenient lie.

There has been more than ample foreshadowing of this revolution, in our cultural narratives, since the 1960s. Artists and writers have as it were already seen our transhuman fate, in hundreds of widely-varying scenarios, with on the whole gloomy assessments of ultimate outcomes.

Similarly, public intellectuals have been exploring transhumanism as a (perhaps inevitable) eventuality since Julian Huxley coined the term in the late 1950s. Today, there is a vibrant and strident, if somewhat marginal and self-sabotaging, transhumanist vanguard clustered around entities like the Extropy Institute and the World Transhumanist Association, heralding – as they see it – the rise of a successor species, and – in the process – the re-valuation of all human values by that species.

And counter-revolutionary forces – largely governmental and quasi-governmental agencies – have also taken the field, using the fiat power and exclusionary techniques – as well as their control over research funds – to manage what they take to be the likely source of transhumanist technology: genetic modification of one sort or another.

But — perhaps more to the point — a close reading of our broader cultural narratives — advertising, film and television particularly — indicate pretty clearly that, on the whole, we are more titillated and excited by the impending merger of meat and machine than we are frightened or wary of it.

None of this bodes well, it seems to me, for the species. Given that where demand exists, demand will be satisfied — when and where it occurs, by private or public actors, for free or for fee — it seems incumbent on those of us interested in the ethical dimensions of technology to treat the transhumanists’ claims with seriousness, and perhaps even alarm.

This paper does that, examining three fundamental questions:

1. Is the transhumanist revolution possible, probable or inevitable? If not, what can thwart the ambitions of transhumanists? If so, why possible? Probable? Inevitable?
2. If indeed this revolution is at hand, can we expect it to unfold as have previous technological revolutions, or are there fundamental characteristics of the transhumanist revolution that will make it different than those we have seen before?
3. If, as the transhumanists claim, their revolution is in part the re-valuation of all human values, the creation of a successor species, what are the major ethical dilemmas posed by the revolution, now and in the immediate future?

In the process of answering those questions, this paper will critically examine the following premises:

Where genetic engineering is a matter of understanding the nature of a fundamentally new kind of building material, nanotechnology and biosilicon are relatively simple problems of engineering scale: building smaller machines and smaller computers.

While the human species has have no real positive experience, globally, with the wholesale creation of new life forms, we have several hundred years of accumulated engineering expertise in building machines at increasingly small scale.

Problems of presence – our need to be, in one form or another, in multiple places at once – and problems of sensory bandwidth – our need to process more, and richer, streams of data in each of those multiple places are compelling sociotechnical problems for individuals in first-world economies, will be the key drivers for the adoption of transhuman technology, and are in fact the signposts of some of the key ethical dilemmas posed by transhumanism.

Significant investment capital – private and public – is fueling academic and commercial programs to repurpose, downscale and productize nanotechnological and biosilicon technologies, largely for military, security and inspection applications, re-emphasizing the open boundary between the needs of state power on the one hand and the social good on the other.

Attempts to quarantine commercial transhuman technology, prevent its distribution and sale, or control its repurposing will have as little impact as previous attempts to control the spread, use and repurposing of information technology.

The paper will also characterize the likely shape and source of commercial transhuman technologies that we can expect to see entering commercial markets in the next decade, describe the repurposing phenomenon (prevalent today in the pharmaceutical and medical device fields) that may enable the first several waves of transhuman technology adoption, and suggest lines of inquiry, debate and discussion ethicists interested in the transhuman phenomenon will need to pursue over the next decade to be at least marginally prepared for what may be a truly Foucaultian epistemic shift within the next 10 years.

AUTHOR
Alec Charles

ABSTRACT

The moral consequences of new technologies have always been ambiguous and controversial; and these ambiguities and controversies are echoed today by researchers examining the social and economic impacts of the Internet, and in particular of E-society, E-government and E-democracy. Because of its speed of IT development – and because of its size, its relative newness as an independent state, and its status as a new member of the European Union (the member with the largest disparity between the rich and the poor) – the formerly Soviet Baltic nation of Estonia presents itself as a pertinent case study in this area. Despite the country’s massive increases in Internet access (spearheaded more energetically by the private and the voluntary sectors than by the state itself) the social, economic and political promises of information technology may here prove optimistic or even unfounded – in so far as the enhanced rights and opportunities offered by IT have tended to accrue to Estonia’s privileged classes rather than to the disadvantaged sections of the population – the people most urgently in need of those new opportunities and rights.

AUTHOR
Maria Ganzha

ABSTRACT

During design of new software social and ethical issues are too seldom examined. Complexity of procedures examining ethical issues can be pointed to as one of the main reasons of this situation. Moreover, an ethical audit of the project demands additional time and expenditure of resources. Developers and managers often claim that perfect software will be excellent from the ethical point of view. However, numerous examples of failures of software projects support the necessity of including ethical analysis into the development process from the very beginning.

There exist methods for ethical analysis of a software project. Let us recall some of them: (1) “procedural” algorithm for ethical analysis proposed by Maner; (2) method of multidimensional analysis of quality and performance during software development LIME (Lifecycle Measurement) by Buglione and Abran; (3) five-step process of ethical analysis by Rahanu et. al.; (4) Bynum and Rogerson method based on natural ability of most people to make ethical judgments and others. There exist also special programs, which support the impact analysis of the software project throughout its lifecycle (for example, the SoDIS Project Auditor). But the main objective of these methods is only to define ethical “bottlenecks” of the analyzed project. This means that the method serves to define these parts of the project or of already completed program modules, which violate ethical principles.

While the latter approach is very valuable, we have to notice, that it is during all stages of a the lifecycle of the project (LCP) that managers (and possibly developers) as well as managers representing customer(s) have to make choices between several alternatives. These consideration points to a definite need for creation of a procedure(s) for multicriterial ethical decision making. In this context, we recognize that there exists a well known AHP procedure for making multicriterial decision in business (Saaty (1990)). However, this procedure does not take into account all possible stakeholders impacted by the project. Instead, only the developer team and customers are considered.

Let us further stress that in research on evaluation of software quality it is the completed “product” that is discussed. All methods, tools and procedures for evaluation of software quality deal with already implemented software. If we accept this approach, in a way we implicitly agree with failure of completed software projects due to disregarding of stakeholders’ interests, designing program on the base of past experience (which may be wrong in the new situation), having no procedure to support decision making in crucial junctures of project development, etc. To avoid these pitfalls procedure(s) should be developed, which permit to evaluate broadly understood “costs” of every decision during project development.

In this paper a new procedure for the estimation of “goodness” of alternative paths in project development is proposed. This procedure is capable of accommodating into consideration all stakeholders of the project. Furthermore, it can be used to evaluate “costs” every time when a major decision is to be made. The main idea behind of this procedure is to combine the existing methods for making complex decisions and stakeholders ethical analysis. This new combined method

• helps to capture subjective and objective evaluation measures,
• takes into consideration Customers’ and Suppliers’ interests as well other possible stakeholders,
• provides a useful mechanism for checking the consistency of the evaluation measures and alternatives suggested by the team,
• is designed in such a way to be applied in every step of the project,
• reduces possible bias in the decision making process.

A very important part of the proposed method is the selection of criteria for the project estimation. It has to be stressed that in the proposed method software criteria and ethical criteria are not separated. Numerous examples prove that violation of any criteria impacts failure/success of the project. As a base set of criteria used in our approach we use the well-known set of criteria proposed by McCall and his colleagues. They have introduced a categorization of factors that affect software quality by focusing on three important aspects of a software product: (1) its operational characteristics, (2) its ability to undergo change, and (3) its adaptability to new environments. However, from the perspective suggested here these factors are insufficient for complete estimation of the project. For instance, resources, financial and ethical factors are not taken under consideration and therefore the McCall approach has to be augmented by additional criteria. The process of selecting the augmented set of the criteria is also a part of the proposed method. It is very important that experts – group of people which perform analysis of a project – collaborate in the process of selecting criteria to be used in the process (as the final list may depend on the nature of the process itself as well as the existing set of stakeholders). As an example let us list a few factors that can be taken into considerations:

• financial management – the project does not cause unnecessary expenditure;
• privacy protection – execution of the project will not break somebody’s privacy and will not enlarge number of people, who has access to data without agreement of this data owners;
• data protection – realization of the project will not damage database security;
• intellectual property – realization of the project will not damage omebody intellectual property;
• human resource management – project does not require the developers to work beyond their ability;
• reasonableness of schedule – all work is to be done in a steady fashion, amount of work does not lower quality of developers’ (program team) life during the lifetime of the project development;
• feasibility of objectives or goals – all formulated tasks and subtask are feasible;
• agreeability of the schedule – the schedule of project is suitable to time allotted by the customer.

After defining the set of criteria to be used in evaluating the process we can calculate the criteria weights using the method of comparison estimates. Naturally, satisfaction of different criteria has different significance for the project. This is reflected in comparison estimation. For example, let us assume that the customer requires completing the project in a short time. Thus, the time criterion has (for the customer) value higher than values assigned to the estimates of other criteria.

The next important part of the proposed procedure is choice of stakeholders. First, let us note, that stakeholders are understood in a very broad sense. This means that not only Customer and Developer, but all humans and non-humans affected by the project are taken under consideration. Furthermore, every alternative to be considered may have its own set of stakeholders. To deal with this issue we decided to consider a united set of stakeholders. However, since not all stakeholders are equally important to the project and the project does not affect all stakeholders in the say way, stakeholders’ weights are also defined.

The last step of the procedure consists of evaluation of every alternative “cost”. The cost of alternative is calculated as the weighted sum of its estimates with respect to every criterion and to every stakeholder. This is achieved by applying linear algebraic techniques abased on the AHP procedure.

The proposed procedure is going to be illustrated by an example.