By Kurt Seifried (kurt@seifried.org)

People often argue that software doesn’t decay, or to quote an Op-Ed piece from the New York Times:

The software industry’s sluggishness is not just a reflection of the vagaries of the economic cycle. It is a manifestation of a fundamental, if often overlooked, characteristic of the industry’s product: software never decays. Machinery breaks down, parts wear out, supplies get depleted. But software code remains unchanged by time or use. In stark contrast to other industrial products, software has no natural repurchase cycle.

But this simply isn’t true (never has been, never was). Software decays, much like a radioactive element, some decay rapidly, and some decay very slowly. For example accounting software that implements tax rules may become obsolete within a year due to changes in the tax code. Customer service management software can decay rapidly due to changes in the way customers are handled, the products offered, and so on. Conversely some software packages decay very slowly, avionics software for example often lasts for decades, and some operating systems have also withstood the test of time.

However it is very rare that a single event will cause software and operating systems to suddenly jump forward in their decay rate, however this can and does happen.

(more…)