[vlmutolo]

We're currently dealing with problems that arose from people assuming that their systems wouldn't ever be used for more than, say, 50 years. That assumption is frequently proven wrong.

500 years is pretty different. Odds are that computing will look nothing like what we know today. Our software will be long dead.

And if it isn't, there will be yet another Y2K bug in 500 years' time, and they'll solve it. Just like we keep solving it.