Why have the ACM and IEEE codes of ethics served software professionals less well than they could have?

Many software professionals are not members of either body, many people on projects are managers rather than software experts, many members don't know the codes, collegial and organisational pressure can override them, and some rules are too vague to apply.

The first three reasons are about reach: the codes don't get to the people who make the decisions. The last two are about effectiveness: even people who know the codes struggle to follow them. The conclusion is that ethics in software cannot be delegated to a document. That leads to process-based approaches such as Value-Sensitive Design and Value-based Engineering.