> So any time you have more than one person writing a program, things will get political.
I agree with you that the software industry seems to struggle more with these kinds of political issues.
However, there are many human endeavours that also require input from large numbers of stake holders and they seem to cope (i.e. going to the moon, building a bridge, building a skyscraper etc.).
That suggests the problem is not so much the large number of stake holders, but rather the software industry struggling to cope with situations requiring large numbers of stakeholders.
Quality on the initial revision of Apollo Program hardware and software wasn't great. They did as well as they could given the constraints at the time. But there were numerous failures along the way, and several missions survived mostly through blind luck.
I agree with you that the software industry seems to struggle more with these kinds of political issues.
However, there are many human endeavours that also require input from large numbers of stake holders and they seem to cope (i.e. going to the moon, building a bridge, building a skyscraper etc.).
That suggests the problem is not so much the large number of stake holders, but rather the software industry struggling to cope with situations requiring large numbers of stakeholders.