[dragonwriter]

> Software rots just like physical products.

No, it doesn't.

It may become less relevant/useful as market conditions change (like physical products), but it (apart from physical media it is stored on) doesn't also itself degrade over time the way physical products all do at varying speeds.

[manigandham]

The binaries will run, but the world changes and if you want to keep up with those changes then the software needs maintenance, which is obviously the topic of discussion here.

[dragonwriter]

> The binaries will run, but the world changes and if you want to keep up with those changes then the software needs maintenance, which is obviously the topic of discussion here.

Physical products both rot (degrade with time) and become obsolete. Maintenance addresses the former problem, redesign and upgrades address the latter problem.

Software becomes obsolete like physical products (and so needs redesign and upgrades), it does not rot like physical products (and so does not need maintenance.)

Software “maintenance” is a misnomer, and the idea that software “rots like physical products” is wrong or, at best, a poorly chosen metaphor, since what it does do is at best loosely analogous to rotting, but exactly the same as becoming obsolete, which is something physical products also do, so rotting is not the closest physical-product analog to what drives the need for continuous attention to software.

[manigandham]

Fine then, the software is becoming obsolete as the environment changes. The original comment used "rot" so I continued, because I'd much rather have a productive discussion than a pedantic one.