This is indeed one of the specific instantiations of the generic single-actor control-delusion that has always been with us, but has been greatly exacerbated by the rise of software. And I've no doubt that it's enough to keep the engineers' cognitive dissonance stoked - "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" plus a bit of ego stroking from the implication that being able to work on this particular code is really special.
But it's utterly fallacious. It's quite clear that if certain changes result in different behavior, then whomever made those specific changes is responsible for the resulting behavior. About the only leg the argument can stand on is if the code is so sloppy that someone attempting to make a simple change tickles a bug somewhere else, but enabling such lack of quality to persist is the exact wrong approach for a safety-critical system!
Furthermore, regardless of its actual merit, this is precisely the kind of Schelling point collusion that is in the collective interest to bust up. "Selling" someone a piece of capital equipment that is deliberately designed to prevent its own servicing is plainly fraudulent.
But it's utterly fallacious. It's quite clear that if certain changes result in different behavior, then whomever made those specific changes is responsible for the resulting behavior. About the only leg the argument can stand on is if the code is so sloppy that someone attempting to make a simple change tickles a bug somewhere else, but enabling such lack of quality to persist is the exact wrong approach for a safety-critical system!
Furthermore, regardless of its actual merit, this is precisely the kind of Schelling point collusion that is in the collective interest to bust up. "Selling" someone a piece of capital equipment that is deliberately designed to prevent its own servicing is plainly fraudulent.