Personally I think it is simply a self-serving fraud for software developers to call themselves engineers.

There is neither the scientific basis for the analysis, design, construction, and testing processes in software development, nor the rigourous management of the practitioners (training, licensing, etc.) to warrant such a lofty title.

The widespread level of incompetence, ignorance of the few basic, well founded, theoretical principles we do have available for software development practice, and the lack of rigourous training and "certification" for the overwhelming majority of practitioners, makes it laughable to me to hear the term "software engineer".